Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938)

Marie-Clémentine (called Suzanne) Valadon was born at Bessines-sur-Gartempe, near Limoges, France. Her mother was an unmarried laundress and from the age of nine, Suzanne had to support herself by doing odd jobs. One was as a circus acrobat, but this was dangerous work. At age 16, she sought a safer occupation as an artists' model in Paris, posing for Impressionists such as Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir, among others. She also mingled with the artists at night in the clubs and cabarets of Montmartre. She gave birth to an out-of-wedlock son, the future artist Maurice Utrillo, when she was 18. With encouragement from the artists she knew, including Degas, Suzanne Valadon took up painting herself, and became noted for her realistic style, producing nudes, portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. Her best known works are Family Portrait (1912) and The Blue Room (1923). In 1894, Suzanne Valadon became the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. She had well-known affairs with the painter Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes, the composer Erik Satie, and others. After a marriage to the banker Paul Moussis, she fell in love at age 50 with André Utter, an artist 21 years younger than she. He also posed for a number of her works, including the painting Adam and Eve (1909).