Career of a female painter: Suzanne Valadon

The Centre Pompidou pays tribute to Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938), an emblematic and audacious artist, one of the most prominent figures of her time.

Outside the dominant artistic movements of her time, such as Cubism and the nascent abstract art, she fervently defended the painting of reality.
Valadon places the nude, whether female or male, at the heart of his work, representing bodies with authenticity and without voyeurism.

Suzanne Valadon had a significant impact on the representation of the body in art, particularly through her approach to the nude, both female and male. She is considered a bold and iconic artist.

Valadon placed the nude at the center of his work, representing bodies without artifice or voyeurism.
She was the first woman to paint a large-format, frontal male nude. Her approach to the nude, as well as her work in general, is distinguished by its great freedom. She did not adhere to any dominant artistic movement of her time, preferring to paint reality. Her work highlights the resolutely modern nature of her artistic approach.

The current exhibition at the Centre Pompidou highlights her pioneering role and underscores her often underestimated contribution to the birth of artistic modernity. The exhibition offers a unique glimpse into her work, revealing her artistic and personal relationships with bohemian painters, as well as her influence on the Parisian art scene.

The exhibition is organized into five thematic sections which allow visitors to grasp the scope, richness and complexity of his work:

• Learning through observation
• Family portraits
• "I paint people to get to know them."
• "The true theory is imposed by nature."
• The nude: a female gaze

And to continue the discovery of this unique woman's journey, a very beautiful graphic novel by Flore Mongin and Coline Naujalis has just been published.