Looking at the Masters: Suzanne Valadon

March is Women’s History Month, and International Women’s Day, first observed in 1911, will be celebrated on March 8. Give to Gain is this year’s theme: “We can all give our support to gain advancement for women and girls.”  Marie Clementine Valadon (1865-1938), also known as Suzanne, advanced the role of women artists.

Marie Clementine Valadon’s mother, Madelaine, was 21 years old when she gave birth to Marie. She never knew her father. She and her mother moved to a tenement in Montmartre, the bohemian hilltop in Paris, where Madelaine scrubbed floors and cleaned the offices of George Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France. Madelaine was an alcoholic who engaged in liaisons with men, leaving Marie to become a child of the streets. She was enrolled in the Convent School of St Vincent de Paul, where she was described as the “worst truant they ever had.” After a number of jobs, including trapeze artist in the circus, Marie turned to modeling. An astute observer, she learned from the artists who employed her: Renoir, Degas, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Her first drawing was a self-portrait in 1883.

Valadon lived with Puvis de Chavannes and later with Toulouse-Lautrec. He named her Suzanne, after Suzannah in the Old Testament who was accused of enticing her husband’s associates to have sex. Suzanne was promiscuous and had several affairs while she was married. Lautrec called her “a natural artist” and Degas agreed, “Yes, it is true. You are indeed one of us.” Valadon’s drawings and prints were exhibited in 1894 by the Society National des Beaux Arts. Her work was the first by a woman to be accepted for the exhibition, significant because competition was fierce.

Valadon began with still life, portrait, and landscape paintings full-time in 1896. By 1909, she had begun to paint the female nude, her favorite subject. “Joy of Life” (1911) (46”x81”) (Metropolitan Museum) is set in a wooded landscape. Bathers was a popular subject at the time. Four nude women, posed in frontal, reverse, and side positions, dry themselves. Valadon added to the scene an unusual figure, a young male standing aside and gazing at the women. She was the first woman to depict male nudes. Much has been and continues to be written about the “male gaze.” Since most artists were men, their gaze at women suggested sexual desire. Viewers knew that the young male model was Andre Utter, Valadon’s lover at the time. He looks on, but the women ignore him.

Valadon’s work was selected for exhibition in the 1909 Salon d’Automne and the Salon of Independents beginning in 1911. Degas was the first to purchase one of her works. She was self-taught except for Degas’s instruction in soft-ground etching. Degas also introduced her to several collectors, including Paul Durand Ruel and Ambrose Vuillard.

“The Future Revealed” [“The Fortune Teller”]

“The Future Revealed” [“The Fortune Teller”] (1912) (25”x51”) is characteristic of her mature style. Valadon preferred to employ female models from the working class. She outlined everything in black, and she painted flesh with rough, visible brushstrokes. The subject is not modeled to suggest sensuality. She is unphased by her nudity. The Victorian wall paper, large wooden sofa with red cushions, and Persian rug are painted in rich colors. Her clothing, an exotic ensemble, is casually hung over the back of the sofa. The black pillow is patterned with red roses. Her female companion reads her fortune.  Neither figure engages with the viewer. 

“The Black Venus” (1919) (64”x38”) is one of several paintings for which Valadon employed African models. Trade with Africa and the Caribbean opened, and avant garde artists Picasso, Matisse, and Valadon employed black models. Previously black figures were depicted as servants or a primitive presence. Valadon departed from the practice in “The Black Venus” by replacing the classical image of the white Venus with an African. The black Venus faces the viewer with confidence. She is strong and unafraid, and she belongs. Valadon admired Gauguin for bringing the beauty of the women of the South Seas to Paris.

“The Abandoned Doll” (1921) (51”x32”) (National Museum of Women in the Arts) captures the moment in a girl’s life when she begins the change to an adult. The intimate lives of women as a subject was a new theme. The setting is a young girl’s bedroom. The young girl is nude. Having come from the bath, she is being gently dried by her mother. She sits awkwardly on the very edge of her bed and looks into the mirror she holds in her hand. Her body is changing. Valadon captures the moment of realization.  Her abandoned doll lies on the floor.

The use of primary colors is characteristic of Valadon’s work. The red coverlet on the bed, the brass headboard, the white towels, and the yellow patterned rug set the stage. Black paint outlines all the figures. A strong triangle is formed by the poses of the mother and daughter. Their legs reach the floor, where the abandoned doll lies parallel to their feet. It is a compelling work.

Paintings of odalisques, from Titian’s goddesses in the 16th Century to Manet’s “Olympia” in 1863, were depictions of luxurious settings in which beautiful, reclining nudes represented passion. The odalisque in Valadon’s “The Blue Room” (1923) (35”x46”) defies the tradition. The full-figured female is clothed. She wears green and white striped paints that tie at the waist and a tank top painted the same colors as her flesh, suggesting nudity. She smokes a cigarette, a trend in the post-World War I era. French blue was the color of the Gauloises cigarette package (1910) and a symbol of national pride. Smoking was associated with intellectuals and artists, and the signature of the new woman. The two books on the bed are an indication that she is an intellectual. Valadon was a voracious reader. The woman does not look at the viewer. She is self-assured. The blue and white spread and curtains against an abstract flowery wall are painted in variations of the colors used on the model. She is a modern woman. Valadon commented, ”Do you know Cherie, I think maybe God has made me France’s greatest painter.”

Art historians consider Valadon a trailblazer for women artists. She, her husband, and son were known as the “wicked trinity” by 1914. She was respected and accepted by her fellow avant garde artists, and the art market. Her paintings of women and nudes were contrary to the norms of the time, but they were not considered to be competition with the work of male artists. Her first one-woman exhibition in 1915 at the Berthe Weill Gallery in Paris was a great success. It was fashionable by 1923 to own her work, and the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris awarded the Wicked Trinity a yearly stipend of 60,000 francs. The trio bought the Chateau St Bernard, 500 miles from Paris and near the river Saone and the town of Laon. Valadon’s funeral on April 7, 1938, was attended by Picasso, among many of her famous colleagues.

The women’s movement in America began in 1970. In 1976, authors Peterson and Wilson chose Valadon’s “The Blue Room” to be the cover image for Women Artists: Recognition and Reappraisal from the Early Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, one of the earliest books on the subject

“When you judge me, don’t forget that I lived among greats.” (Valadon)