Biography of Suzanne Valadon

Marie-Clémentine Valadon was born on September 23, 1865, in Bessines-sur-Gartempe, Haute-Vienne.

Marie-Clémentine Valadon and her mother, Madeleine Valadon, a laundress, lived in Montmartre. From the age of eleven, Marie-Clémentine worked as a seamstress, laundress, waitress, and street vendor. She later became a trapeze artist for the Fernando and Molier circuses. A serious fall forced her to abandon her acrobat career prematurely.

It was then that she entered the artistic sphere and became a model for painters under the Italianized name "Maria." In 1880, at the age of fifteen, she posed for the first time for painter Jean-Jacques Henner. Suzanne Valadon later modeled for several artists, including Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Auguste Renoir (Young Woman with Bare Breasts, Dance in Bougival, Dance in the City), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (The Hangover), André Utter (Portrait of Suzanne Valadon), and Jean-Eugène Clary (Suzanne Valadon at Twenty, circa 1887, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). She also posed for Gustav Wertheimer, Federico Zandomeneghi, Louis Forain, Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, and Vojtěch Hynais.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec gave her the name "Suzanne," referring to the biblical episode Suzanne and the Elders. While frequenting artists' studios, she refined her drawing skills, which she had practiced since childhood. She observed painting techniques but only ventured into oil painting in 1892. During this period, she met painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and posed for Auguste Renoir, who also became her lover.

She had several admirers, including Miquel Utrillo, a Catalan engineer, art promoter, painter, writer, and art critic.

At eighteen, she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, Maurice, on December 26, 1883, though she claimed not to know the father's identity. Around this time, she created her first signed work under the name Suzanne Valadon: a pastel self-portrait. During this period, she primarily created drawings, mostly portraits, using graphite, charcoal, and red chalk. This became her main artistic activity until 1909.

Miquel Utrillo took an interest in the child and frequently visited the Valadon household. In 1886, Marie-Clémentine and her mother moved to Rue Tourlaque, where Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec rented a studio. They quickly became acquainted, and she became his model and lover. He painted her portrait titled The Hangover. She accompanied him on his nocturnal outings. After discovering some of her drawings, he advised her to show them to Edgar Degas, who was enthusiastic and took her under his wing as a student and protégée.

Her son, originally named Maurice Valadon, took the surname Maurice Utrillo in 1891 when Miquel Utrillo recognized him as his own.

It was not until 1892 that Suzanne Valadon began painting in oils. She painted still lifes, floral arrangements, and landscapes characterized by their strong composition and vibrant colors. She also portrayed those around her, painting portraits of her son and mother, as well as nudes.

In 1893, she had a relationship with Erik Satie. According to some accounts, he proposed marriage the morning after their first night together. This was the only known intimate relationship of the musician, who later wrote that she left him with "nothing, apart from a cold solitude that filled the head with emptiness and the heart with pain."

Suzanne Valadon exhibited for the first time at the Le Barc de Boutteville gallery in 1893 and 1894. In 1894, she also participated in the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts, presenting five drawings.

She became the mistress of Paul Mousis, a stockbroker and friend of Erik Satie, whom she married in 1896. The couple settled at 12 Rue Cortot, atop Montmartre. This marriage provided her with financial stability, allowing her to focus on painting and raising her son.

Her marriage ended in 1909, the same year she exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris (where she remained a member until 1933). She began a relationship with her son's friend, painter André Utter, whom she married in 1914. Their tumultuous union lasted nearly thirty years. They both appeared in one of her most famous paintings, Adam and Eve (Paris, National Museum of Modern Art). During this period, her works took on a more naturalistic style, as seen in The Little Girl in the Mirror (private collection) and The Fortune Teller (Friends of the Petit Palais, Geneva).

Edgar Degas, despite popular belief, never had her pose for him. However, he admired the sharp lines of her sketches and paintings and encouraged her by purchasing and collecting her early works. She achieved success during her lifetime, securing financial stability and providing for her son.

Art dealer Berthe Weill actively supported her, including her in 15 group exhibitions and offering her three solo exhibitions (1915, 1927, and 1928) in her galleries.

In 1923, Suzanne Valadon and Utter purchased the Château de Saint-Bernard, north of Lyon, hoping to curb her son's alcoholism. Maurice Utrillo painted the castle, the village church, and its restaurant.

Towards the end of her life, Suzanne Valadon befriended painter Gazi-Igna Ghirei, known as Gazi the Tatar (1900-1975). Inspired by this encounter, she resumed painting and participated in group exhibitions organized by the Society of Modern Women Artists (FAM), founded in 1931.

She passed away on April 7, 1938, in Paris, surrounded by painter friends including André Derain, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Georges Kars, who sketched her final portrait that day. She was buried on April 9, 1938, at the Saint-Ouen Cemetery in Paris.