Valadon, Suzanne

(1867-1938)

   painter

   Born in Bessines-sur-Gartempe, Haute-Vienne, Marie-Clémentine Valadon, who would be known as Maria, and then Suzanne Valadon, was the daughter of a mason and a laundress and came to Paris as a youth with her mother. She had to give up a career as an acrobat after a fall and became an artist's model. At age 18 she had a child (maurice utrillo) who, a few years later, was recognized by the critic Miguel Utrillo. She posed for a number of outstanding painters, including puvis de chavannes, auguste renoir, henri de toulouse-lautrec,and edgar degas. The latter, after seeing her drawings, encouraged her to continue, and, around 1908, she began to paint, producing still lifes, landscapes, and portraits and female nudes. Her portraits show the influence of paul gauguin, while her realistic portrayals of life in the Montmartre district of Paris draw on hers and her mother's working-class life, with often a sense of despair or loneliness, even in her drawings and paintings of children. The decorative aspects of her work recall henri matisse (Nu à la couverture rayée, 1922; La Chambre bleue, 1923).

   Valadon's works clearly demonstrate a deep sense of personal vision (Portrait d'Érik Satie), and she regularly exhibited in the Parisian salons and galleries and later with the group Femmes Artistes Modernes.