Suzanne Valadon: The Complete Story
Suzanne Valadon climbed from circus acrobat to artist model to celebrated painter, all without a day of formal training. She had posed for the great men of Montmartre, then picked up their tools and outdid many of them, painting frank, powerful nudes and portraits with a strong dark outline all her own. She was one of the first women to paint the male nude openly.
The painters she modeled for did not realize they were training their rival.
Born: Bessines sur Gartempe, France, 1865
Known for: strong nudes and portraits, a model who became a major painter
Died: Paris, 1938
From the other side of the easel
Valadon began as a model in Montmartre, posing for Renoir, Toulouse Lautrec and Puvis de Chavannes. While she stood still for them, she watched everything, and drew in secret. See what is portrait painting.
When she showed her drawings to Edgar Degas, he was amazed, bought them, and encouraged her for years. A working class model had become an artist the masters took seriously.
Nudes without apology
Her nudes broke the rules. She painted real bodies, her own and others, without flattery or soft idealizing, outlined in firm dark contour and filled with strong color. See what is the nude in art.
Most daringly for a woman of her time, she painted the male nude directly, a subject women had been shut out of for centuries. Her honesty about the body still feels modern. See what is Post Impressionism.
Montmartre life
Valadon lived the bohemian life of Montmartre to the full, with a tangle of love affairs, money troubles and a chaotic household. She married more than once and her circle was the heart of the district.
Her son, Maurice Utrillo, became a famous painter of Paris streets, though his life was troubled. For a while mother and son were two of the best known artists on the hill.
A circus fall and a daring life
Before the easel, Valadon performed as a young circus acrobat, until a fall from the trapeze ended that life and pushed her toward modeling. Reinvention was her habit from the very start.
Her private life was as fearless as her art. A brief, intense affair with the composer Erik Satie left him heartbroken for years, and she scandalised Montmartre with a later marriage and a much younger lover, living entirely on her own terms.
A few things people ask about Suzanne Valadon
What is Suzanne Valadon famous for?
Strong, honest nudes and portraits, and her rise from artist model to major painter.
Who did she model for?
Renoir, Toulouse Lautrec and Puvis de Chavannes, among others, before painting herself.
Who encouraged her?
Edgar Degas, who bought her drawings and supported her for years.
When did she die?
In 1938, in Paris.
Why her line still cuts
Valadon refused every limit placed on a poor woman in the art world and simply painted what she saw, bodies and all. Museums now give her major shows, and her unflinching nudes look braver than ever beside the polite art of her day. She was far from the only woman written out of the story, as I show in the old masters who were women too.
One last detail. She is said to have once kept a goat in her studio, partly for company and partly, the story goes, to eat her bad drawings. The model who became a master had a sharp sense of humour about her own work.