Sacre Coeur on top of Montmartre

A Montmartre Surprise

A family of four scheduled a tour with me. Among their requests of things to see in Paris, was a desire to go to Montmartre, a popular destination for many tourists to Paris. The mother, named Sandra, told me that she wanted to find a particular painter up on top of the hill. I had my doubts that he would still be there as there can be quite a fluctuation in painters. I see many of them almost every time I take visitors up to Place de Tertre as it is a full time job for them. Others are only there for a season or two and then disappear.
Sandra’s story was this: Fifty years before her parents and the young Sandra had visited Paris and on a visit to Montmartre found a painter that they liked. They were looking at his gentle painting of some clowns (not the scary kind with white faces and red noses) pastel in color playing a musical instruments. Sandra’s father wasn’t sure he liked the selection so the artist took them up to his studio going through a door right on the square, up some rickity stairs and showed them some more of his work. They found exactly what they wanted and bought a painting.
Sandra grew up with that painting. Fast forward, 20 years later, and Sandra returned with her husband, Ron, and they went to Montmartre. They found a painting they liked on Place de Tertre, bought it and when they returned home discovered that it was by the same artist of the painting her parents had bought in the same location. It must have spoken to Sandra, been in her subconscious, and she selected one that felt familiar to her.
So, she wanted to find the artist again as her son had grown up with her painting and wanted something similar for himself. I didn’t have much hope but we set off for Montmartre, took the bus up to the top and found the artists in the middle of the square. We walked around them all and didn’t find the artist. By chance, Sandra stopped at a lady selling colorful Eiffel Towers painted in plaid and asked him if she knew the artist. To our surprise the lady said, “Yes, I am very good friends with his daughter. He, however, died about 10 years ago.” I thought that was it but then she said, “The daughter isn’t here today but I have the key to her studio and I know there are some paintings left there by her father. Let me take you there.” To Sandra’s surprise, we went through a door right on the square, up the same rickity stairs that she had gone up so many years before and entered the same studio. Among the daughter’s painting were about 50 left by her father. We looked through all of them and they ended up buying four, after the artist with the plaid Eiffel Towers named Kiki, called the daughter and got the prices. Because they bought four, she gave them a discount. The son selected a Paris landscape, the mother bought three clown paintings, two for herself and one for her sister. We left Montmartre very happy people, amazed at how small the world can be and at how amazing it was that, out of all of the painters up by Sacre Couer, she picked the artist who helped them find the paintings of the artist they had talked about for years. It was a real Montmartre surprise.