Bateau-Lavoir: Picasso and the Artists' Hideaway

Leave the Wall of "I Love You" and walk a little way up the alley, and you'll reach the Bateau-Lavoir, or "Laundry Boat." This unusually named building was home to a community of artists. Its most famous resident was Picasso, and it is best known as the place where he painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. The painting hangs in New York, so you can't see it in Paris, but you can visit the place where it was made.

When Picasso lived here, he was said to be so poor that he couldn't even light a stove. Even so, he painted with passion and worked hard at selling his paintings. He also lived here with Fernande Olivier, whom he met by chance, and she appears frequently as a model in his work from this period. Other painters who lived and worked in the building include Modigliani, Georges Braque, and Henri Matisse.

Today it's a place that nearly every famous name passed through, but there was only one reason the artists gathered here: it was a ramshackle, run-down shanty. They were poor, and they needed somewhere to work.

The building got its name because, in those days, it resembled the laundry boats that floated on the Seine. The name was coined by the poet Max Jacob, a close friend of Picasso who contributed greatly to the birth of Cubist literature. Fittingly for a place where painters, musicians, and writers lived side by side, even the name feels literary.

The original building was destroyed by fire, and the present one was rebuilt later. The interior is closed to visitors, so you can only see the exterior, but the Bateau-Lavoir is well worth seeking out on a Montmartre walk.