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 A French painter of figures, still life, floral art and landscape, and
the first female artist to be admitted to the Société Nationale des
Beaux-Arts, Suzanne Valadon specialized in modernist figure work in oil
and
pastel. She was such a perfectionist that it was not unusual for
her to wait more than ten years before releasing a work from her
studio. Unlike many artists working at the same time, she was
financially successful during her lifetime. She broke tradition
with her figure painting in that she often depicted unglamorous female
nude figures, homely women, who obviously had no interest in attracting
men and were just having a good time being who they were. Her
forms were strongly delineated, brightly colored, deliberately
distorted physically and positioned awkwardly.
Valadon had a life of scandal. She was born with the name of
Marie-Clémentine Valadon, and later changed her name to Suzanne
Valadon, alleging that she was a foundling. In fact, she was
'illegitimate' and raised in poverty as her mother
was an unmarried laundress. They moved to Paris, when she was
five and lived in the bohemian section called Montmartre. As a
child
she worked with her mother doing washing and worked as a nanny, and at
age fifteen became a circus acrobat. However, a fall the next
year from a trapeze and serious injury ended that activity.
She had been around the Montmartre section of Paris with artists
several years before the trapeze performing, and while her mother was
at work, had done numerous charcoal drawings that received
praise. After the accident, she, who was strikingly beautiful,
did nude modeling for artists from whom she learned techniques for her own
painting. Among her artist-mentors were Edgar Degas,
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri-Toulouse Lautrec and Pierre-Cecile Puvis
de Chavannes. Reportedly she had affairs with de Chavannes and
Renoir for whom she posed in his paintings Dance at Bougival and City Dance.
He also painted her portrait, Suzanne Valadon. Degas encouraged
her talents and purchased paintings from her, and Toulouse-Lautrec
painted her as the subject in The Hangover, 1889.
In the early 1890s, her works were first shown publicly in exhibitions,
and they were primarily portraits. One of the subjects was the
composer, Eric Satie, with whom she had an affair in 1893. Satie
wanted to marry her, but she, a free spirit, did not accept the offer
made on their first night together. Her refusal reportedly left
him heart broken and with a future barren of further intimate
relationships. However, it was not until 1909, when she was
age 44, that she devoted full time to painting, and in 1911, she had
her first one-person exhibition.
Known as a truly unique character, Valadon wore corsages of carrots,
had a pet goat in the studio to munch on her 'bad' drawings, and fed
caviar to her 'Catholic' cats on Fridays. In 1896 for financial security, she married a
stockbroker, Paul Mousis, but left him thirteen years later for André
Utter, a man half her age. She was 44, and he was 23.
Valadon died at age 73 on April 7, 1938,
and is buried in the Cimetiére de Saint-Ouen in Paris.
Surviving was a son, Maurice Valadon, who took the name of Maurice
Utrillo and as an artist, became more famous than his mother. He
had been born on Christmas Day of 1883, and because of the wishes of
the mother, the name of the father was never generally known. It
was perpetuated by Valadon that the father was Utrillo, a Spanish
writer and author of a biography of El Greco. However, it is
written by art historians that, in fact, the last name of the father
was Boissy, an unknown painter.
Valadon had trouble raising her son because he had mental problems that
led to alcohol addiction at an early age and also to periods of being
in mental institutions. He left school at age 17, and to try to
help with his afflictions, she successfully encouraged his art talents.
Sources:
Nancy Heller, Women Artists, Works from the National Museum of Women in the Arts, p. 133
http://www.xs4all.nl/~androom/index.htm?biography/p001790.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Valadon
http://www.artcult.com/valad.htm
http://members.tripod.com/cathreese/DefiantWomen/artists/valadon.html
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