Painters [*/ ) Nudes (1894 – 1928) | Suzanne Valadon

Suzanne Valadon, Nudes, 1919            Suzanne Valadon, Esquisse pour Baigneuses au bord d’un ruisseau, 1928

 Suzanne Valadon (1865 – 1938) was a French painter and artists’ model. In 1894, Valadon became the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. She was also the mother of painter Maurice Utrillo.

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Suzanne Valadon was the daughter of an unmarried laundress. When she was 15, she joined the circus, but was forced to quit a year later after falling off a trapeze. She eventually became a model for artists including Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec where she studied their artistic techniques. She is best known for painting female nudes but also painted landscapes, florals and still life. She sometimes worked as long as 13 years on a painting before showing it in public.