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1880s: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon, muse, dancer and enigma
Renoir’s Dancer
What you need to know before your trail
In the 1880s, Suzanne Valadon was considered the Impressionists’ most beautiful model. But behind her captivating facade lay a closely-guarded secret.
Suzanne was born into poverty in rural France, before her mother fled the provinces, taking her to Montmartre. There, as a teenager Suzanne began posing for–and having affairs with–some of the age’s most renowned painters. Then Renoir caught her indulging in a passion she had been trying to conceal: the model was herself a talented artist.
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Paris
The Paris of Suzanne Valadon was a very special city.
Dance at Bougival, by Renoir; the female dancer is Valadon.
“Some found her vibrant still life pictures and frank portraits as shocking as her bohemian lifestyle. At eighteen, she gave birth to an illegitimate child, future painter Maurice Utrillo. But her friends Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas could see her skill. Rebellious and opinionated, she refused to be confined by tradition or gender, and in 1894, her work was accepted to the Salon de la Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts, an extraordinary achievement for a working-class woman with no formal art training.”
Valadon grew up in poverty with her mother and she never knew her father.In 1883, aged 18, she gave birth to her illegitimate son, Maurice Utrillo who her mother cared for while she returned to modelling. She would educate herself uy reading Toulouse-Lautrec’s books and posing for artists. At the same tome however she was making mental notes of how they worked and what they expected of their models in a career of her own.
Later on Valadon had an affair with a composer named Erik Satie and moved into Rue Cortot to be near him. This did not last long and she later married and lived in paris. This was not her first marriage, nor her last.
At the age of 15 Valadon met, Count Antoine de la Rochefoucauld and later began to work in the Mollier circus as an acrobat, but a year later, accident ended that career.
It was in the Montmartre quarter of Paris that she pursued her interest in art as a muse and also a painter
Streetview Maps
A) Paris - Société Nationale des Beaux Arts
D) Paris - Place des Vosges
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Renoir’s Dancer
Destination: Paris, France Author/Guide: Catherine Hewitt Departure Time: 1880s
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