1. Suzanne Valadon, Reclining Nude, 1928, Oil on canvas, 60 x 80,6 cm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection, 1975.1.214P. Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / image of the MMA
Suzanne Valadon - Model -
Rebel - Painter and draftsman
Until the month of September 2023, the Centre Pompidou in Metz presents the exhibition "Suzanne Valadon: A World of Her Own", which was curated by the current director of the museum: Chiara Parisi. Since the new director came in 2018, the Centre Pompidou have shifted its program to present, at least once a year a retrospective of an artist. Everything started out with Eva Aeppli (2022), and now Suzanne Valadon (2023).
Her last exhibition in her home country dates from the late 60s at the Musée National d’Art Moderne. And now, the Centre Pompidou Metz shed light, again, on her works and her life as a model before becoming a painter. Thus, the exhibition is divided in two different sections, the first one being her early years as a model for the artist of her time such as Renoir. While the second sections is devoted to her works as a painter making imposing nudes, family portraits, still-life and landscapes.
The biography
Born on the 23th of September 1865, Marie-Clémentine Valadon is born in Nessines- sur-Gartempe from Madeleine Valadon and an unknown father. As a small girl, she grew up in Montmartre with her mother, who works as a cleaner.
At the age of eight, she does her first drawings. But at the age of eleven, her mother asks her daughter to provide money for the household, and she started working at a market and for a florist. And after a few months in a circus, she became a model for Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Jean-Jacques Henner, Gustav Wertheimer, Vojtěch Hynais, Santiago Rusiñol, Jean-Eugène Clary and Théophile Steinlein.
At the end of the day, she decided to change her name from Marie-Clémentine to Suzanne, the nickname given to her by Toulouse-Lautrec.
In the 1880s, she married the Spanish journalist and young aristocrat Miquel Utrillo, and gave birth to her first children Maurice Utrillo. While being a mom, she finally decided to put her own name on her works and she decided to create her first painting in 1892 titled "Girl Doing Crochet Work.".
In the 1890s, she met Edgar Degas, an artist and important art collector who will buy one of her works and teaches her soft-ground etching, on his own press, in his apartment. All of this happened at a time where Valadon was quite fragile after numerous love story and break up. Thus, she was happy to find a new husband, Paul Mousis, an affluent banker.
This freedom will let her create numerous still-life and large female nudes. Most of her works are not well-known in the artistic circle, and they are exhibited in different Salon in Paris.
Finally, in the 1920s, Valadon is elected member of the Salon d’Automne and her first works are sold at auction at the Hôtel Drouot. Four years later, she signs a contract with the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune and became one of the most important artist of the gallery.
In 1935, Valadon joined the Société des Femmes Artistes Modernes, and exhibited there until her death 3 years later. But as the love story with Paul Mousis is ending, Valadon moves into the former studio of Émile Bernard at 12, rue Cortot in Montmartre.
The concept of the exhibition
1. The model
Suzanne valadon was first known as a model of the artistic milieu of Montmartre. She adopted the name Maria as a model and modelled for artist such as Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Puvis de Chavannes.
One of the first important project of the model was "Dance in the City", a bourgeois portrait currently conserved in the Musée d'Orsay collection. With this important project, a lasting friendship will grow between the model and the artist. Valadon will describe it as follow : "I posed for him dressed, in the sun, in the grass, bare-headed or wearing a very flowery hat. Nude as well. It was a very colourful period."
On the other hand, Toulouse-Lautrec pictured Valadon as a relation, they we're together for a few years, and while this relation was quite complicated, the portrait depicts every moment and emotions of this life.
Lastly, the most famous patron of the time was Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, who asked Valadon to be the model of an impassive ecorative painting for a staircase at the Petit Palais des Arts de la Ville in 1883.
2. The family
The representation of her friends and family is deeply important in the oeuvre of the artist. Thus, the Portrait of Erik Satie was one of the first canvases that Suzanne Valadon produced as a painter, and the painter represent her iconic style made out of bold colours and black lines underlining the figure. And while this representation is more personal because it depicts her lover, the story will end abruptly due to the jealousy of Satie.
On the other side, in her iconic "Family Portrait", the artist is the only person which looks at the viewer. And while she's rising on a torso (symbol of purity), the artist is making clear reference to Italian artists from the Renaissance. On their other side, her depiction of her son, Maurice Utrillo, reflects his alcoholism with a pose inspired by the iconography of Dürer’s Melancholy. On the other side, André Utter and the mother of Valadon "Maman Madeleine" watch the tree figures.
3. Nudes
Valadon was an eccentric figure in painting, and she decided to depict the scene of Adam and Eve as André Utter and Suzanne Valadon, thus being the first female artist who depict a male nude. Other than this biblical scene, Valadon was mostly influenced by Gauguin, which presented nudes in a lush landscapes. But the one of Valadon is a mix between the lush landscape of Gauguin and the figures of Puvis de Chavannes.
The exhibition catalog
The exhibition catalog feature essays by Chiara Parisi, Philip Dennis Cate, Jean-Paul Delfino, Daniel Marchesseau, Yelin Zaho, Sophie Bernal, Paula Birnbaum, Sophie Bramly, Magali Briat-Philippe, Louise Chennevière, Gwendoline Corthier-Hardoin, Gilles Genty, Stéphane Guégan, Céline Le Bacon, Claire Lebossé, Constance de Monbrison, Saskia Ooms, Florence Saragoza and Jeanine Warnod. And it's published by the Centre Pompidou Metz
ISBN: 978 23 59 830 712
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Centre Pompidou Metz
Date: 15.4.2023 – 11.09.2023
Curators: Chiara Parisi
Ticket: Available at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Centre Pompidou Metz
Centre Pompidou Metz
1 Parvis des Droits-de-l'Homme
57 000 Metz
Phone: +33 (0)3 87 15 39 39
Mail: contact@centrepompidou-metz.fr