A few minutes stroll from the museum will take you to the Place Emile-Goudeau, one of the delightful and charming smaller squares of the neighborhood. At no. 13 is the Bateau-Lavoir, a small art studio that many artists, including Picasso and Modigliani once called home. Picasso painted one of his most famous and controversial paintings, Les Desmoisellesd’Avignon here, a painting widely considered to be one of the first cubist paintings. The original building was burnt down but replaced in 1978 and still has about 25 artists and sculptors studios. You can see – and purchase - their work which is displayed in the large showroom. Another building of artistic interest close to here is the building where Picasso had his first studio in Paris (49 Rue Gabrielle)
A few minutes walk downhill from the square you can see the rather drab-looking apartment building where Vincent Van Gogh lived for several years in the 1880’s. (54 Rue Lepic) Further along the street there is a lovely garden hidden away behind high walls and in one of these houses the surrealist painter Max Ernst lived. (75 Rue Lepic) Take a good guidebook along with you if you walk through the area - for the most part there are no signs or plaques on the walls of these buildings indicating their artistic legacy.
Windmills are another unique feature of the area and have been immortalized on canvas many times. On the corner of Rue Lepic and Avenue Junot you can still see the picturesque windmill, Moulin de la Galette, now part of a restaurant. The windmill was the subject of one of Renoir’s most famous paintings, which can be seen in the Musee d’Orsay.
Towards the top of the butte, not far from the Montmartre vineyard, you can still find the ‘Pink House’ the subject of one of Utrillo’s most well-known paintings, (2 Rue de l’Abreuvoir) and something of a local landmark. If you need sustenance after climbing up and down all those steep staircases that the neighborhood is noted for, the house is now a small cafe. Utrillo also made several studies of a nearby road called Mont Cenis; on this street a building painted bright red has written on it ‘Utrillo painted this’.