Suzanne Valadon

Suzanne Valadon was one of the more remarkable figures to pass through Renoir's studio: a model who became one of the most significant French painters of the early twentieth century. Renoir painted her in the 1880s when she was working as his model, and the portrait — presumably made before her own artistic ambitions were known to him — captures a young woman of unusual force of character. Valadon later described the experience of modelling for Renoir with ambivalence, finding his aesthetic limited by its insistence on conventional feminine prettiness. The portrait is therefore both a historical document and an unknowing record of an encounter between two very different artistic temperaments.

Renoir applies his standard female portrait approach here — warm flesh modelling, softly resolved features — but Valadon's face has a directness and individuality that distinguishes this canvas from his more generic female studies. Her dark eyes meet the viewer without coyness. Renoir has not softened her features toward a type, and the result is one of his more psychologically present portraits.