Friday, June 21, 2013

Montmartre - Valadon and Utrillo


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My first reaction is "That was some dinner!"    Suzanne Valadon was the daughter of a laundress, and began work as a circus acrobat.  She was injured in a fall from a trapeze and turned to work as an artists' model, and then became a painter herself.  She was the first woman to be admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1894.  Some of her paintings are exhibited in the Centre Georges Pompidou.
 She had affairs with several painters and the musician Erik Satie.
Her son Maurice was born when she was 18. He later took the surname Utrillo.  Reproductions of his paintings of Montmartre were everywhere in the 1960s - we saw some of the originals in the Orangerie.
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