Suzanne Valadon

Suzanne Valadon defied all odds by transitioning from an artist’s model to a successful artist in her own right, becoming the first self-taught woman artist to join the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1894. The daughter of an unmarried domestic worker, Valadon grew up in Montmartre and became an artist’s model at 15 to support herself. From 1880 to 1893, she posed for some of the Belle Epoque’s most important painters, like Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and learned to draw and paint by observing the artists she encountered. Edgar Degas would become a friend and mentor to Valadon, instructing her in drawing and printmaking techniques. Thanks to her husband’s financial support, Valadon pursued painting full time beginning in 1896, producing realist female nudes and still lifes in post-Impressionist and Fauvist styles.