Suzanne Valadon in the spotlight of a major exhibition at the Center Pompidou

Suzanne Valadon signed his first drawings in 1883, dubbed by the painter Edgar Degas. Under his leadership, she began to take nude silhouettes from those around her as models. Its particularity? She avoids any romanticism, any idealization. Bodies are represented from all angles, leaving realism at the center of the creative process. While the era was cubism and impressionism, the painter created her own rules by transgressing those already established. In 1906, his meeting with the painter André Utter provokes a wave of audacity in his art. From now on, Suzanne Valadon is not afraid of anything and causes a scandal with his web Adam and Eve (1909) at the Salon des Indépendants. On this one, we see nothing other than herself, naked, alongsideUtteralso naked (the artist is the first to represent a male nude from the front).

The vision is frontal, the bodies are real and Valadon paints herself as she sees herself. Long sexualized, the female nude here takes on a neutral, even feminist, significance. In his recent work Valadon, published by Les Pérégrines, the historian and art critic Clément Dirie écrit : “Where Valandon does not disappoint us, and on the contrary delights us, is by giving us access in an authentic and personal way to a space of feminine and domestic intimacy thanks to a restricted, perhaps obsessive repertoire of poses.” In the 1920s, Valadon tries his hand at bourgeois portraiture. The decor is simple but decorated with colorful fabrics leaving a modern impression on the observing eye. In short, its ambition crystallizes over time: Valadon wants to paint reality. “Never bring me a woman who is looking for lovable or pretty – I will disappoint her right away”, she said.