Female painters – Page 8 – my daily art display

Beryl Cook and her voluptuous women

If you were to decide to hang another picture on one of your walls of your abode, I wonder what you would decide to display. I wonder how you would come to your decision. Would you hang a picture of somewhere you have just visited as an aide-mémoire of the place you enjoyed so much for its beauty, whether it is a seascape, landscape or even a cityscape? Maybe you would consider hanging a print of a painting by one of the great Masters of the Renaissance so that you can be reminded of their artistic mastery but, if you do that, maybe such an inclusion would be construed by your friends as a sign of your pretentiousness. On the other hand, you may choose to hang a painting which, through its complexity and symbolism, becomes a talking point for all those who cast their eyes upon it. Let me offer you an alternative. Today I am featuring a very popular English artist, whose work you either love or hate. She became well-known for her much-adored colourful and ostentatious depictions of large, often scantily-dressed women with a lust for life, often in a setting of a pub or club. She was often referred to as the woman who painted fat ladies. However many were critical of her work. The English art critic, Brian Sewell, was openly disparaging of her artistic style and said of it:

“…very successful formula which fools are prepared to buy but doesn’t have the intellectual honesty of an inn sign for the Pig and Whistle. It has a kind of vulgar streak which has nothing to do with art…”

However, the one thing that her work guarantees is that it will bring a smile to your face and her paintings and prints have sold across the world. The artistic establishment has shunned her work and strangely enough it seems that she understood their condemnation of her efforts as an artist, once saying:

“…I know there are some artists who look down on my work and when you compare mine with some of the others, I can see what they’re getting at…”

At the start even she had been disappointed with what she produced, confessing:

“…I expected to paint like Stanley Spencer. It was a great disappointment to me when I realised that I didn’t…”

The featured painter today was a wonderful proponent of Naive Art, which is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique. So who was this enigmatic and talented person?

Beryl Frances Lansley was born in September 1926 in Egham, Surrey. She was one of four sisters. Her father was an engineer and her mother was an office worker. Her parents’ marriage broke down and her father left the family home when Beryl was just four years old. In 1930, her mother took her and her three sisters to live in Reading where the family was supported by their paternal grandfather. When Beryl was ten years old the Cook family moved next door and they had a son, John, and soon Beryl and John became good friends. Beryl attended the Kendrick Girls’ School in Reading, but in 1940, aged 14, she left school to train as a typist. It should be noted that during her early life and her school days Beryl showed no interest in art!

In 1944 the family moved to Marylebone, London and Beryl took up a number of jobs; as a secretary in an insurance office but she didn’t enjoy office work, as a show girl in a touring production of The Gypsy Princess, but felt too self-conscious to enjoy the experience and in the fashion industry for Goldberg’s of Bond Street, which aroused her life-long fascination with the way people look and dress. In 1947 the family moved once again and this time went to live in an idyllic house in Hampton, a small town on the north bank of the River Thames and it was from their house that Beryl helped her mother to run a small tea-garden. It was around this time that she became re-acquainted with her erstwhile next-door neighbour, John Cook, who during the war had been an officer in the Merchant Navy. Friendship turned to love and Beryl and John were married in October 1948. In 1950 the couple had a son, also called John and in 1952 they all move into John’s mother’s house in Southend-on-Sea, where they remained until they bought their own house in nearby Leigh-on-Sea, Essex the following year.

Her husband left the merchant Navy in 1955 and he and Beryl tried their hand at running a pub and bought the public-house tenancy of the White Horse Inn, in the small village of Stoke by Nayland, on the Essex-Suffolk border. However they had always enjoyed the bustle of city life and were not use to the tranquillity of the countryside that now surrounded them. It what not what they wanted and so they terminated their pub venture after just twelve months. In 1956, John managed to find himself a job with a motor company as a car salesman but the position meant re-locating his family to Salisbury, the capital of Southern Rhodesia. Beryl worked as a book-keeper in an insurance office but she was far from happy with life in Africa and once talked of her unhappy experience in Southern Rhodesia and the ex-pat lifestyle, saying:

“…I didn’t like being so far from the sea and I couldn’t bear the social life which revolved around parties because there wasn’t anything else to do…”

However there was one incident during their stay in Rhodesia that was to change Beryl’s life. It happened in 1960, when her son John was ten years old. She was trying to interest him in drawing and painting and had caught the artistic bug herself, so much so that her husband bought her a set of oil paints. Beryl’s first painting was a half-length copy of a dark-skinned lady which she saw in a photograph, who had large pendulous breasts. Her husband was amused by what he saw and cheekily christened it The Hangover. She never sold this work and remained in the family home.

In 1963 the family moved to the Ndola Copper Belt in Northern Rhodesia. John continued his work as a car salesman and Beryl worked in a finance office. Life for the Cook family was no better, in fact it was worse and they only remained there until 1965. Beryl and her husband had had enough of land-locked Rhodesia and decided to head back home. In 1965 Beryl along with her husband and son returned to the UK settling first in a cottage in East Looe, Cornwall and the change of country and her happiness to be back “home” inspired Beryl to once again take up her art. In 1968 the Cooks moved to Plymouth where they bought a guesthouse on Plymouth Hoe. John Cook continued working in the motor trade whilst Beryl opened up the guesthouse to visitors in the summer. Many of her guests were actors with travelling repertory companies who were appearing at the local theatres. Once the summer was over, the guesthouse was closed and Beryl was able to concentrate on her paintings. She would often use wood instead of canvas and would search for ideal pieces she could find, such as lavatory seats, driftwood and wardrobe doors! She painted continuously during the cold winter months and admitted that she was pleased when summer arrived and she had to put her paint brushes away so as to concentrate on her paying guests. She commented:

“…I had to stop painting for about four months each summer when the visitors were here, and in a way this was quite a relief for by this time there were so many paintings it had become increasingly difficult to stack them!…”

Beryl loved living in Plymouth for it was a flourishing seaside town full of lively and often risqué bars. It was a place frequented by all kinds of people. There were the local fishermen and sailors from the naval warships tied up in the harbour. The place was awash with countless fascinating individuals, and Beryl and her husband would spend time in the local bars where the entertainment was often glitzy and gaudy drag acts. Beryl would often surreptitiously sketch the characters frequenting the bars and they would become the leading figures in many of her paintings.

Anybody for a Whipping by Beryl Cook (1972)

Beryl sold her first paintings in the early 1970’s. The sale of some of her work was arranged by Tony Martin, an antiques dealer friend of the couple, who had bought Beryl and John’s cottage in East Looe. The more her work sold the more she grew in confidence and soon the walls of her guesthouse were filled with her work. In 1972 Beryl asked her husband what he would like for Christmas and his request was simple – he wanted Beryl to paint him a risqué depiction of a scantily-dressed plump young lady. Beryl acquiesced to his Christmas request and gave him a painting which became known as Anybody for a Whipping?

Her paintings were about people and she was surrounded with all types, both locals and holiday makers. A classic work of hers around this time was her hexagonal painting entitled Sabotage, completed in 1975. Three women taking part in bowling are depicted in the work. One very large woman is seen bending over about to bowl whilst one of her fellow bowlers, looks out at us with a cheeky smile, as she pokes the bottom of her compatriot. Beryl painted it on a wooden bread board.

Beryl achieved another artistic breakthrough in 1975 when an actress who was a regular guest at Beryl’s guesthouse and who loved her paintings, which adorned the walls, mentioned them to Bernard Samuels who ran the Plymouth Art Centre. Eventually, after much persuasion, he went to see her artwork for himself. At this time she had about sixty paintings spread throughout the rooms of her establishment and Samuels convinced her that she should exhibit them all together in one room at his Art Centre. The exhibition was held in the November and December of that year and it proved a great success. The number of visitors surpassed all expectations, so much so that the duration of the exhibition was extended.

The Lockyer Tavern, (c.1960) courtesy PWDRO, copyright Plymouth Library Services, — The Lockyer Tavern, (c.1960)
courtesy PWDRO, copyright Plymouth Library Services,

The following year The Sunday Times colour magazine featured one of her works, the Lockyer Street Tavern, with the headline The Paintings of a Seaside Landlady. The Lockyer Tavern on Lockyer Street, Plymouth was built in 1862 but now no longer exists, having been demolished in the late 1970’s. It was a favourite haunt of Beryl and her husband and in the painting we see some of her distinctive characters – the regular pub goers lounging at the bar with their pints of beer and glasses of wine.

There is an effeminate air about some of the characters depicted which probably alluded to a thriving gay community in the seaport at the time. During the 1950s, 60s and 70s The Lockyer Tavern became famous for being a safe place for gay men to drink and socialise, particularly in its ‘Back Bar’. Homosexuality in those days was a taboo subject and The Lockyer became so famous for the sexuality of some of its clientele that it became a coded term for discovering a person’s sexuality – by asking ‘do you know the Lockyer’s? What Beryl was good at was her power of observation and her attention to detail. In this painting we see how she has portrayed the clothing, accessories and hairstyles of her characters. For many the essence of her work is the “fun factor” and how her sense of humour oozes from most of her work. In this painting our eyes are drawn to the falling man who crutch is thrown upwards as he falls as well as the somewhat effeminate pose of the bespectacled man as he disdainfully looks on.

Another Plymouth drinking establishment that featured in many of her works was The Dolphin Hotel. In her 1995 painting entitled Hen Night we see a line of “larger than life” happy ladies entering the establishment with just one thought in their mind – to have a good time. This, for one of them, is her last night of freedom before she gets married. The dress code of the ladies is probably inappropriate for their figures but today it is still the same. They are probably oblivious of how they look in their short skirts and shorts and are just out to enjoy themselves, which I am sure they do. Beryl described the painting:

“…The friends make the bride a hat (in this case a large cardboard box covered in silver paper and saucy decorations) and there is much singing and hooting as they go through the streets…”

Her paintings are all about having a good time and maybe that is why they are so popular as they are amusing and they lift our spirits. In her work entitled Striptease we see men standing around a bar with pints of beer grasped tightly in their hands ogling a larger than life woman as she disrobes in front of them. One can almost imagine the conversation passing between them as the ladies clothes fall, one by one, to the floor.

In 1976 Beryl Cook had her first London exhibition, it was a sell-out. Following this an article appeared in The Sunday Times, and this led to Beryl being contacted by Lionel Levy of the Portal Gallery in London who wanted to put on an exhibition of her work. She agreed, and in 1977 had her first solo exhibition. Following the success of the exhibition she went on to hold annual exhibitions at the portal Gallery for the next eighteen years. Her last one there was in 2006 with the aptly named title Beryl Cook at 80.

Her paintings were not solely based on what she witnessed during her life in England. She had been an admirer of the works of English painter Edward Burra, who was best known for his often salacious depictions of the urban underworld and black culture. He had painted scenes around the dockside bars of Marseille and the seedier side of the night clubs around Barcelona’s Ramblas district. The works had seduced Beryl and John to visit those places for themselves and for Beryl it was an ideal opportunity to sample the life of these somewhat seedy parts of the towns. From her visit to Barcelona came her painting entitled Red Umbrella which depicted a well-known lady of the night doing her nightly round of the Ramblas bars in search of business.

Beryl often derided the ostentatious and one of my favourites is her work entitled Roulette which depicts a room in a gambling establishment. How many times have we, after a few too many drinks, decided that we should end the night at a casino. The outcome is a foregone conclusion with the casino quickly relieving us of our money. In this work we see a plump lady lying across the beige of the roulette table lovingly grasping a mound of chips. Has she just won them or is she trying to place them on her favourite number? The pin-stripe suited man with glass a champagne in one hand and a large cigar in the other passes behind her but leans back as he seems unable to take his eyes off her large derriere. A couple of fellow roulette players sit at the table mesmerised by the lady’s actions.

Beryl Cook was awarded the OBE for services to art in 1966. Many of her works have been bought by British galleries and the Portal Gallery in London has represented Beryl’s work for more than thirty years. In January 2004 her larger than life, over-exuberant characters starred in a two-part animated television series made for the BBC. The animated films, which won several animation awards, was entitled Bosom Pals and Beryl’s voluptuous ladies were transferred from canvas to screen. Besides the recognisable females which were seen in the film the setting used was often The Dolphin pub on Plymouth’s Barbican, which had featured in many of her paintings. People who watched the TV series, and who had never previously seen her artwork, suddenly became aware of talent.

Beryl Cook died in May 2008, aged 81. Her husband of almost sixty years and their son survived her. Beryl Cook never trained professionally, but her paintings have appealed to many for their candour, loudness, and some would say their vulgarity. Her paintings, which often focused on women with large bottoms and bosoms, were as saucy as the well-loved British seaside postcard and they are now looked upon in some quarters as true folk art in the same tradition as Brueghel, Stanley Spencer and the Colombian artist, whom I featured in my last blog, Fernando Botero.

Elizabeth Jane Gardner – the resolute and tenacious artist.

Elizabeth Jane Gardner by William Bouguereau (1879)

The artist I am looking at today is the American, Elizabeth Jane Gardner. If you read my last blog, which was the conclusion of the life of the French Academic painter William Bouguerau, you will know that Gardner was his second wife. This is not a story about the wife of a famous painter dabbling with art. This is a story about the fighting spirit of an acclaimed painter – a great artist in her own right, although it has to be said that she was often criticised because much of her work resembled her husband’s genre pieces.

Elizabeth Jane Gardner was born in October 1837. Her birthplace was the town of Exeter in the American state of New Hampshire. It was here that she attended junior school. After completing her regular school education in 1853, she attended the Lasell Female Seminary at Auburndale Massachusetts. The college, which was founded in 1851, was named after its founder Edward Lasell, who was a great believer in female education. It was at this college that Elizabeth studied languages and art. She graduated in 1856 and for the next few years was a teacher of French at the newly opened Worcester School of Design and Fine Arts in Massachusetts.

Whilst she had been studying art at the Lasell Seminary she would often question the teaching she received but it dawned on her that the foundation of all good painting stemmed from the ability to master the art of drawing. It was probably during the time spent in her art classes there that she nurtured the desire to one day, go to Europe and live and study art in Paris, which was then, the capital of the art world and the Mecca for all European and American artists. This artistic ambition to savour French life and its art was probably delayed by the American Civil War and her dream was not realised until 1864, when she and her former art teacher at the Lasell Seminary, Imogene Robinson, set sail for France. They got themselves a flat in Paris and that summer obtained licenses as copyists at the Louvre and the Musée du Luxembourg. For the duration of that summer they fulfilled artistic commissions from America by copying paintings in the collection of the prestigious galleries which they also sold to the locals. However Elizabeth’s main reason for coming to Paris was to receive further artistic tuition at one of the prestigious art academies and so in the autumn she applied to enter L’École des Beaux-Arts, the foremost art institution. She was horrified that her application was rejected, not on the grounds of her ability but on the grounds of her sex. L’École des Beaux-Arts, like many art establishments at the time, had a male-only admissions policy and refused to admit females into their hallowed corridors. The banning of women from the L’École des Beaux-Arts was not lifted for another thirty-five years, in 1897.

Whether it was her and her American companion Imogene’s need to fulfil their initial aim for coming to France, to receive tuition from an established artist or whether it was the simple fact that the public art galleries were not heated and copying works of art in the cold establishments became less pleasant, the women gave up their commissioning work and in the winter of 1864 they looked for an artist who would provide them with some tuition. Established artists were happy to nurture and teach aspiring artists provided they could pay. The more the student was willing to pay the better the class of artist who would become their tutor. Elizabeth’s companion Imogene was in a much better financial situation than Elizabeth and was able to secure Thomas Couture as her mentor and tutor whereas Elizabeth who was not as well off settled for a lesser-known painter Jean-Baptiste-Ange Tissier, whose students were mostly women.

Portrait of Elizabeth Gardener Bouguereau by her husband William Bouguereau (1895)

Elizabeth Gardner was a resolute and determined character and was not going to be put off by red tape and sexist bureaucracy of the art academies and so devised a plan on how she would gain admission to one of the Parisian art schools. Before she had left the shores of America, she had been ill and had lost a lot of weight and had had to have her hair cropped short. Her figure had taken on a boyish appearance which part facilitated her ingenious plan. She decided to pose as a young lad but for a woman to walk the streets of Paris dressed as a male she had to have permission from the Paris Police Department! The law was passed on November 17^th 1800 when Paris city chiefs had placed the order on the statute books that required women to seek permission from the police if they wanted to “dress like a man.” The order was issued at the end of the French Revolution when working-class Parisian women were demanding the right to wear pants in their fight for equal rights. Parisian women activists, during the Revolution, had also requested the right to wear trousers as a political gesture and like their male working-class revolutionaries became known as “sans-culottes” for wearing trousers instead of the silk-knee breeches preferred by the bourgeoisie. It was modified in 1892 and 1909 to allow women to wear trousers if they were “holding a bicycle handlebar or the reins of a horse”. Such an old fashioned law! Actually not, for it was only in January 2013 that the French Minister of Women’s Rights, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, said that the ban was incompatible with modern French values and laws and although it had been ignored for many years it was only right that the law was officially repealed and so French officials invalidated the 213-year-old order that forbade women in Paris to dress like men and wear trousers. The French government had been opposed to women wearing trousers for it was a simple method of preventing women, who dressed as men, from gaining access to certain offices or occupations which were male-only domains.

The rear of the Gobelin Factory (c.1830)

Elizabeth’s plan worked, for in 1865, she successfully applied to the drawing school of the prestigious Gobelin Tapestry factory which was best known as a royal factory supplying the court of Louis XIV and later monarchs. At the beginning she was accepted as a young lad but after a while her fellow students and instructors realised that she was actually a young woman. Whether it was because of her outstanding drawing ability or her determined personality, one may never know, but despite the discovery of her sex, she was allowed to stay.

In the Académie Julien in Paris by Marie Bashkirtseff (1881)

One person, who was also impressed with her ability and strength of mind, was Rodolphe Julian. He had established the Académie Julian in 1868 as a private studio, a school for art students. The Académie Julian was a kind of feeder school for art students who wanted to later gain admission to the École des Beaux-Arts as well as offering independent training in arts. At that time, women were not allowed to enrol for study at the École des Beaux-Arts, but this new Académie Julian accepted both men and women, albeit they were trained separately, but most importantly, women participated in the same studies as men, which included access to classes which taught the basis of art – drawing and painting of nude models. The Académie Julian was particularly popular with aspiring American artists for it did not have an admission’s precursor of having to be able to speak French.

Whether it was beginners luck or just the fact that she had become a successful and talented artist but in 1868 she had two of her painting accepted by the Salon jury. To have a painting exhibited at the Salon was a great moment in the life of an aspiring painter. It was not just in recognition of their talent but it enhanced the value of their future works. Elizabeth was delighted and wrote home to her parents:

“…when the ex’n opened both of mine were hung in full view among foreign artists and raises the value of what I paint…”

Elizabeth Gardner’s works were often found in the annual Salon exhibitions and in the exhibition catalogues she, like many other artists whose works were on show, would often name the well know artists who had taught them. This was an attempt by artists to boost their status and their “artistic bloodline”. It is by looking at these catalogue entries that we know that Elizabeth received tuition from Hugues Merle, a contemporary and friend of Bouguereau from 1868 to 1874. The name of the artist, Jules-Joseph Lefebvre was added in catalogues in 1875 as was the name of William Bouguereau from 1877 onwards.

Moses in the Bullrushes by Elizabeth Jane Gardner (1878)

In 1878 Elizabeth Gardner put forward a religious painting for inclusion at that year’s Salon. It was entitled Moses in the Bulrushes. She had started the work the previous year and was pleased with its progress. In December 1877, she wrote about her progress with the work to her brother, John, who was back home in Exeter, New Hampshire:

“… I have advanced my picture of little Moses a good bit this month. The canvas is now covered and now comes what is to me the hardest part. I have always ideas enough for nice subjects but it is so hard to make the reality come up to the dream. I get sometimes quite frantic over it…”

The work was accepted by the Salon jurists and exhibited in 1878. The Arts critic of the American Register, a newspaper for expatriate Americans living in Paris wrote in the April 6^th edition:

“…‘Miss E. J. Gardner has just completed her picture for the Salon, Moses in the Bulrushes. The subject is taken at the moment when Moses has just been placed amongst them, and his sister has parted the bulrushes to watch the approach of Pharaoh’s daughter, who is seen in the distance. The expression of anguish in the mother’s face is especially well rendered, and the coloring is remarkably fine…”

The fact that she had put forward a religious painting for inclusion at the Salon was a brave move as history and religious paintings were looked upon as the highest form of art genre. It was a genre that was also looked upon as being artistically, a male-only domain and female artists were often discouraged from attempting such works. However as we know, Elizabeth Gardner was a strong-minded person and never shied away from controversy if she believed her course of action was right. Her submission of this religious work entitled Moses in the Bullrushes, put her in direct competition with her male counterparts. It was also interesting to note that her take on the event portrayed was from a female perspective. She had depicted the two women, the mother of the baby and the Pharaoh’s daughter, as courageous women who were saving the life of the baby, Moses.

As the sale of her paintings increased with her popularity, so her financial situation improved. Things got even better in the late 1870’s when the renowned Paris art dealer Goupil began purchasing her work and in the 1880’s her work was so much in demand that the prestigious Knoedler art dealership of New York, was buying her Salon paintings, sight unseen. This art dealership had formerly been a subsidiary of the Parisian art dealers, Goupil & Cie.

Elizabeth had reached one of her most sought-after ambitions in 1868 – to have one of her paintings exhibited at the Paris Salon. However Elizabeth was not one to rest on her laurels and her next ambition was not only to have her work hung at the Salon exhibition but that it was deemed worthy of an award. She had to wait another nine years for that happening.

One of Elizabeth Gardner’s artistic mentors was William Bouguereau. Elizabeth and her companion Imogene were living in a flat in rue Nôtre-Dame des Champs in the Montparnasse district of Paris, the same street in which Bouguereau and his family resided. Elizabeth became known to the family and was on friendly terms with Bouguereau’s wife, Marie-Nelly. William Bouguereau and Elizabeth Gardner must have become quite close during this time as, eight months after the tragic death in childbirth of Bouguereau’s wife in April 1877, the grieving widower proposed marriage to Elizabeth. Elizabeth was happy to accept but Bouguereau’s mother and daughter Henriette were horrified. The daughter threatened to leave home and join a convent if a marriage took place but this threat was never tested as Bouguereau’s of the vociferous, sustained and obdurate opposition from his mother to the formalising of the partnership was enough to halt any proposed wedding plans. However the couple became engaged in 1879 and Elizabeth wrote about Bouguereau, their betrothal and her thoughts about his mother. In a letter she wrote:

“…And now about my engagement…. I am very fond of Mr Bougereau and he has given me every proof of his devotion to me. We neither of us wish to be married at present. I have long been accustomed to my freedom. I am beginning to attain a part of the success for which I have been struggling so long. He is ambitious for me as well as I for myself. As it is I can’t help working very much like him. I wish to paint by myself a while longer. He has a fretful mother who is now not young, 78 I think. She is of a peevish, tyrannical disposition and I know she made his first wife much trouble…”

Elizabeth and Bouguereau continued to work together and seemed happy or maybe just resigned, to accept a long drawn out courtship.

The Farmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Jane Gardner (1878) — The Farmer’s Daughter by Elizabeth Jane Gardner (1878)

The realisation of Elizabeth’s ambition to be awarded a medal at the Salon came in 1887. By this time, the popularity of her work had surged and she had been inundated with commissions but her mind was focused on her Salon entries and in December 1886, she wrote to her brother John of her desire to achieve that ultimate success:

“…I must work to get a medal in Paris and not for money a while longer. All will come right in time I am confident if I work hard and am patient…”

In a letter to her sister Maria in January 1887, she again sounded both resolute and optimistic about her award prospects:

“…I am bound to get a medal some year…”

Finally in 1887 the Salon awarded her a medal (third class) for her work entitled The Farmer’s Daughter. The idea for the painting came to Elizabeth whilst she was on a painting trip in the countryside. Whilst out, the weather turned nasty and a downpour ensued. She took refuge from the rain by sheltering in a farmer’s barn and it was whilst there that she saw the farmer’s daughter feeding the hens and ducks. So impressed by what she saw, she decided to make a quick sketch of the scene which led to the finished prize-winning work. The painting is a depiction of unspoiled rural living and must have been seen as a breath of fresh air in comparison to paintings by the up-and-coming Impressionists depicting city scenes and the onset of modernity. Gardner’s tranquil scene would probably have made many people want to exit the city and sample the peacefulness and serenity of the countryside and was for the owner of such a painting, it was a reminder of how life was in simpler days.

The award she received for her work was the first and only medal that was ever bestowed on an American woman painter at the Paris Salon. She was ecstatic and on May 30^th 1887, she wrote to her brother John back in America:

“…My pictures at this year’s Salon have just received the medal which I have waited for so many years. I hasten to write you by the first mail for I know you will All sympathize with me in my happiness. The jury voted me the honor by a very flattering majority – 30 voices out of 40 ….No American woman has ever received a medal here before. You will perhaps think I attach more importance than is reasonable to so small a thing, but it makes such a difference in my position here, all the difference between that of an officer and a private, and I hope it will be a good thing for the sale of my paintings. I made an extravagant risk in my large one this year. Monsieur Bouguereau is very happy at my success. He is as usual President of the Jury, it is his great impartiality which has so long kept him in office. He has always said that I must succeed through my own merit and not by his influence. I hope to send some photos soon….I have nearly a hundred letters of congratulation and dispatches to acknowledge today. I have begun by the dear ones at home…”

This work by Elizabeth was to receive further awards when it was exhibited in the Gallery of the United States at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1889 where it was awarded a bronze medal. To understand how great an achievement this was, one has to remember she was up against some of the finest American painters such as Thomas Eakins, William Merritt Chase and John Singer Sargent.

The Imprudent Girl by Elizabeth Jane Gardner (1884)

The work was exhibited along with another of her works, the somewhat controversial, L’imprudente (The Imprudent Girl).

Elizabeth and William Bouguereau had been courting for seventeen years, unable to marry for fear of crossing Bouguereau’s mother who was adamant that the couple should not marry. However in 1896 his mother died aged 91 and the couple wasted no time in getting married. The colour of Elizabeth’s bridal gown was black and white because, as she explained, although it was her wedding day, she was still in mourning for Bouguereau’s mother. The groom was 71, and the bride 59 years of age. Elizabeth wrote home about their change in circumstances:

“… The old lady died on February 18^th at the age of 91. Her devoted son who had borne with such affectionate patience all her peculiarities was quite afflicted by the change [in her health]. He had so long had the habit of subordinating every detail of his life to her desires, of which the first was to rule without opposition in his house…”

After marrying Bouguereau, Elizabeth almost stopped painting altogether and spent most of her time looking after her husband and his studio. When asked why she stopped painting she simply replied:

“…He was alone and needed me. I abandoned the brush…”

She did not resume her painting career until after his death nine years later and it was then that she signed all her works in her married name.

One other of Elizabeth Gardner’s painting of note was completed just before she married William. It was another religious painting entitled The Shepherd David and was based on a passage from the Old Testament story (1 Samuel 17:34):

“…And David said unto Saul, “Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion and a bear and took a lamb out of the flock…”

The work depicts David demonstrating his worthiness to fight Goliath when he tells the tale of how he, as a shepherd, battled with wild beasts which were menacing his flock. In the painting Elizabeth has shown the young David kneeling in triumph on a dead lion while at the same time grasping a lamb under his right arm. He looks upward towards the heavens, with his left arm raised in recognition that God had given him the strength to fight off the wild animals. Elizabeth was proud of the painting and wrote to her sister Maria in America that she full expected to see her painting receive full-page coverage as one of the best works of art in 1895 in Goupil’s, the esteemed Parisian art dealers, art directory.

Elizabeth and William worked happily together from their studio in rue Nôtre Dame des Champs and, even at the age of 78, Bouguereau took his new wife to Italy a country he hadn’t visited since 1850 when he had won the Prix de Rome prize and the stay at the Villa Medici. The couple would spend their summers away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the French capital and return to the calming ambience of his birthplace, La Rochelle. It was here that William Bouguereau died of a heart attack on August 19^th 1905, three months short of his eightieth birthday. His body was transported back to Paris and he was buried in the Cimetière de Montparnasse.

Art critics of the time often disapproved of Elizabeth’s painting style, saying that it copied too closely the style of her husband. However Elizabeth was unrepentant and was very proud of her work and in a 1910 interview stated:

“I know I am censured for not more boldly asserting my individuality, but I would rather be known as the best imitator of Bouguereau than be nobody!”

The similarity in style between works painted by her and her husband was probably a financially astute decision as she was well aware that this genre of art, the sentimental secular works, was very popular with the public both in France and even more so in America where clients could not get enough of her and her husband’s art.

Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau, a native of New Hampshire will be remembered as the feisty young woman who challenged the French art establishment. She was proud to be different and by so doing, signposted the way for many other women to challenge the stranglehold that males had on the world of art. Elizabeth died at her summer residence in St. Cloud, a western suburb of Paris in January 1922 aged 84 and was buried, like her husband William, in the Cimetière de Montparnasse in Paris.

If you are interested in the life and work of Bouguereau and Elizabeth Gardner I do suggest you buy the excellent book, Bouguereau by Fronia E. Wissman, an author who has written or contributed to a number of books about French artists.

Judith Leyster and Tulip madness

The Merry Company by Judith Leyster (1630)

Of my featured artist today, the Dutch Golden Age writer and poet Theodorus Schrevelius wrote in his 1648 book about the history of Haarlem entitled Harlemias:

“…There also have been many experienced women in the field of painting who are still renowned in our time, and who could compete with men. Among them, one excels exceptionally, Judith Leyster, called “the true Leading star in art…”

Judith Jans Leyster was born in Haarlem in July 1609. She was the eighth child of Jan Willemsz Leyster who was a cloth maker and owner of a local brewery, which was called Ley-ster (guide or leading star). It is thought that her initial artistic tuition came from Frans Pieter de Grebber. De Grebber, a member of the local painters’ guild, Haarlem Guild of St Luke, was a landscape artist and portraitist, who also designed tapestries. The reason for this belief is that the chronicler of life in Haarlem at that time, Samuel Ampzing, mentioned Judith Leyster in his 1628 book about life in Haarlem, Beschrijvinge ende Lof der stad Haelem in Holland. He commented that Leyster, then 19 years old, was a painter who had “good and keen insight”. It was interesting to note that he also made the comment: “Who has ever seen paintings by a daughter?” which alluded to the fact that it was very unusual for a female to become a professional painter and furthermore, in 1633, she was one of only two females in the 17^th century who had been accepted as a master in the Haarlem Guild of St Luke. The first woman registered was Sara van Baabbergen, two years earlier.

It was around this time that Judith’s family left Haarlem and moved some forty kilometres to the southwest and went to live in Vreeland, a town close to the provincial capital Utrecht. Utrecht in the 1620’s was the home of the group of artists known as the Utrecht Caravaggists. These painters, such as Dirck van Baburen, Hendrick ter Brugghen, and Gerrit van Honthorst had spent time in Rome during the first two decades of the 17^th century and, in the Italian capital, it was a time when Caravaggio’s art was exerting a tremendous influence on all who witnessed his works and by the early 1620s, his painterly style of chiaroscuro, was wowing the rest of Europe. Whether Judith Leyster mixed with these painters or just picked up on their style is in doubt as the family stayed in the Utrecht area less than twelve months, moving to Amsterdam in the autumn of 1629 but two years later Judith returned to her home town of Haarlem.

It is known that she met Frans Hals when she was in Haarlem but although many of Leyster’s work resembled Hals’ work, both in style and genre, art historians are not in agreement as to whether she was ever actually Hals’ pupil or simply an admirer. Leyster’s paintings were secular in nature and she never painted any religious works. Although she is known to have painted a couple of portraits she was, in the main, a genre painter, recording on canvas the life of everyday people. They were, generally speaking, joyous in their depiction and were extremely sought after by wealthy merchants.

Her famous self-portrait was completed around 1630 when she was twenty-one years of age and could well have been her entrance piece for the Haarlem Guild of St Luke’s. In the work, she is at her easel, palette and an array of eighteen paint brushes in her left hand. Her right arm is propped against the back of her chair and a brush, held in her right hand is poised ready to carry on painting the work we see on her easel. She has turned towards us. She is relaxed and seems to have broken off from painting to say something to whoever is in her studio. The first things we notice are that the clothes she is wearing. These would not be the ones she would wear when she was painting. They are too good for such a messy job to be worn by somebody who is painting. Her skilful depiction of her clothes allude to her social status and her depiction of them is a fine example of the up-to-date female fashion. Also consider, would a painter working on a painting really be clutching all eighteen of their brushes at the same time? Of course not! This is more a painting in which Judith Leyster is intent on promoting herself. Through this self- portrait she is eager to reveal herself, her painterly skills and her social standing. In this one painting she is advertising her ability to paint a merry genre scene as seen by the painting of the violin player on the easel. This depiction of a musician was similar to the one depicted in her 1630 work entitled The Merry Company, which she completed around the same time as this self-portrait. Of course this being a self-portrait it has also highlighted her ability as a portraitist. It is interesting to note that when this painting was subjected to infrared photography it was found that the painting on the easel was Leyster’s own face and so one has to presume she originally intended that this painting would be a quirky “self-portrait within a self-portrait”, but presumably, Leyster on reflection, decided to have the painting on the easel represent another facet of her painterly skills – that of a genre painter. This was her most successful and profitable painting genre with its scenes of merrymakers. It was this type of work which was extremely popular with her clientele, who wanted to be reminded of the happy and enjoyable times of life. Although Leyster was proficiently skilled as a portrait artist the art market was already crowded with popular portraitist and so, probably for economic reasons, she decided to concentrate on her genre paintings.

Judith Leyster's signature — Judith Leyster’s signature

Around 1629 she set up a studio on her own and started to add her own signature to her works. Her signature or moniker was an unusual and clever play on her surname “Leyster”. Lei-star in Dutch means “lode star” or “polestar” a star often used by sailors to navigate by and she was often referred to as a “leading star” in the art world, and so she used this play-on-words to create a special signature: a monogram of her initials with a shooting star. She must have been successful at selling her works of art as soon she had employed three apprentices. It is interesting to note that she had a falling out with Frans Hals who had “illegally” poached one of her apprentices and the whole matter ended up in court at which time Hals was made to apologise and make a payment to her for his action.

The Jolly Toper by Judith Leyster (1629)

Judith Leyster completed many genre pieces in which she portrayed people as being happy with their lot in life. Settings were often inside taverns but whereas with other Dutch artists who tended to portray the tavern dwellers with a moralistic tone around the evils of drink and the repercussions of becoming a heavy drinker, Leyster wanted to focus more on people enjoying themselves. A good example of that was her 1630 painting which is in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum entitled The Jolly Toper or The Merry Drinker which is considered to be one of her finest works.

The Merry Drinker by Frans Hals (1628-30) — The Merry Drinker by Frans Hals (c.1628)

However with this painting came the assertion by many critics that she was merely a copier of Frans Hals style of painting, such as her choice of subjects and her brushwork. Hals had completed his own painting The Merry Drinker in 1630 so I will leave you to decide whether there are more similarities between Leyster and Hal’s paintings other than the subject matter.

The Last Drop (The Gay Cavalier) by Judith Leyster (c.1639)

Although Leyster’s genre scenes would often focus on happiness and merriment with no moralistic judgement, she did occasionally focus on the darker side of life and a good example of this can be seen in her 1639 painting which is housed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, entitled The Last Drop (The Gay Cavalier). It is a vanitas work, meaning it is a work of art which in some way symbolises the brevity of life. In the work we see two men dressed in festive clothing having an enjoyable time drinking and smoking. The fact that they are not just celebrating but are also dressed up for the occasion has led people to believe that this merriment is taking place on the Dutch holiday of vastelaovend, which we know as Shrove Tuesday, the day before the start of Lent. This was the day when people took advantage of the last day of merrymaking before the forty days of Lent abstinence and fasting. However it is not just the two revellers that Leyster has depicted in the drinking scene, for between them we see a skeleton. The skeleton holds an hour-glass in one bony hand and a skull and a lit candle in the other. The candle both casts a shadow on the seated drinker but at the same time lights up the cavalier’s face. The skull, burning candle and hour-glass are classic symbols of a vanitas painting which have the sobering effect of reminding us of the brevity of life and the inevitability of death. There is no interaction between the drinkers and the skeleton which is probably an indication that as they have imbibed so much alcohol the thought of death never crosses their mind. Look at the expression on the face of the cavalier dressed in red. It is one of blankness and stupidity which we have often witnessed when we look into a face of a drunkard. At that moment in time, he has no concern about his own mortality. One final comment about this work is that it is a good example of how Leyster utilised a style of painting which was associated with the Italian painter Caravaggio and his Dutch followers, the Utrecht Caravaggists, whom Leyster would have seen earlier in her career. It is known as tenebrism which is where the artist has depicted most of the figures engulfed in shadow but at the same time, have some of them dramatically illuminated by a shaft of light usually from an identifiable source, such as a candle as is the case in this painting, or from an unidentifiable source, off canvas.

A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel by Judith Leyster (c.1635)

On a lighter note I offer you another painting with a moral, but somewhat more humorous, which Judith Leyster completed around 1635 and is entitled A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel. It is a visual joke with a moralising tale. It is one of those paintings, typical of Dutch genre scenes, in which you have to look carefully at all who and what are depicted in the painting so as work out what is going on. See if you can fathom it out.

The two main characters are a boy and a girl. The boy has a cheeky smile on his face. He has enticed the cat to join them by waving a wriggling eel which he now holds aloft, having grabbed the cat. The little girl has now grabbed the tail of the cat, which in a state of shock and fear. It is desperate to get away from the pair of young tormentors and has extended its claws and about to scratch the boy’s arm in an attempt to escape his clutches. The young girl who has a face of an older woman, admonishingly wags her finger at us – so why is she so censorious? It is believed that she is smugly warning us against foolish and mischievous behaviour alluding to the Dutch saying: ‘He who plays with cats gets scratched’. In other words he who seeks trouble will find it. Although children are depicted in this moralising scene, it is more a warning to adults about their behaviour and many Dutch artists who painted genre scenes with a moral twist frequently used children to put over their moral message.

In the late 1630’s, a strange phenomenon occurred in the Netherlands, which had been brewing for a number of years. It became known as Tulpenwoede (tulip madness) which saw the price of tulip bulbs rocketing. It all began when some tulip contracts reached a level which was about 20 times the level of three months earlier. In one particular case a rare tulip known as Semper Augustus, which had been valued at around 1,000 guilders per bulb ten years earlier was fetching a price of 5,500 guilders per bulb in January 1637. This meant that one of these bulbs was worth the cost of a large Amsterdam house. Many people, who watched the rising value of the tulip bulb, wanted part of the action. People used their life savings and other assets were cashed in to get money to invest in these bulbs, all in the belief and expectation that the price of tulip bulbs would continue to rise and they would suddenly become rich. Alas as we have all seen when a thing is too good to be true, it usually is, and by the end of February 1637 the price of a tulip bulb had crashed and many people lost their savings.

Tulip by Judith Leyster
from her Tulip Book

However the rising value of the tulip bulb came as a boon to floral artists for if people could not afford the actual tulips for their gardens or pots the next best thing was to have a painting of them and even better still would be to have a book full of beautiful depictions of different tulips. Judith Leyster realised that the public’s love of tulips could be advantageous for her and she produced her own book of tulips.

Flowers in a vase by Judith Leyster (1654)

In 1636 Judith Leyster married Jan Miense Molenaer, another genre painter, and the two of them set up a joint studio and art dealing business. They moved to Amsterdam as the opportunity to sell their works of art was better and there was also a greater stability in the art market. Judith went on to have five children and the role of mother and housekeeper meant that her art output declined. Until recently it was thought that her artistic output had all but ceased, that was until the run-up to a Judith Leyster retrospective at the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem a number of years ago when a beautiful floral still life which she painted in 1654 surfaced. It had been hidden from public view in the collection of a private collector.

Judfith Leyster and her husband remained in Amsterdam for eleven years. They then moved to Heemstede in the province of North Holland, where in 1660, at age 50, Leyster died.

Suzanne Valadon. Part 7 – The final years

Portrait of His Mother Suzanne Valadon by Maurice Utrillo

With their newly found wealth the acrimonious arguments ceased, long-standing bills were paid and new clothes were bought for Suzanne, her husband and her son. There was also a change in the fortunes of the trio for before they were all artists and all exhibited their works but now the Bernheim Jeune gallery just wanted paintings done by Suzanne and Maurice. Utter was now reduced to the role as their manager. He was the one who negotiated deals and organised exhibitions at home and in Europe. The new wealth brought happiness to their friends and neighbours as Suzanne was a generous soul. It was said that tiny street urchins would along the narrow streets of Montmartre clutching onto 100 franc notes which Suzanne had thrown to them from her top floor window in rue Cortot. Suzanne did not forget her mother in this exciting time and arranged to have a splendid granite tomb placed above her grave. She must have been thinking of the future for she the tomb inscribed in gold letters:

Valadon – Utter – Utrillo

Suzanne also remembered those idyllic months she spent with André in Belleville when he was recuperating and so she decided that she and André should return there for a visit. Sadly, as we all know, it is foolish to try and re-live old memories and their return was not as idyllic as she had imagined it would be as the couple lapsed into numerous arguments.

The one thing which did lift their spirits was an impulse buy on the day they were to return to Paris. They bought themselves a chateau which lay close to the River Saône, just 25 kilometres north of Lyon. They bought Le Chateau de St Bernard from the owner Antoine Goujot. The purchase lifted their spirits and they immediately sent out invites to all their friends back in Paris along with money to pay for their travel. Money was no object when it came to supplying food and drink to the chateau parties.

Finally André and Suzanne had to return to Paris and once again relations between the couple began to deteriorate. Their marriage was under extreme pressure and during their vociferous arguments André Utter struggled to remember the good days they had shared together when Suzanne was the one true love of his life. In those days he was mesmerized by both her outer and inner beauty and could not understand what had changed. The problem with Suzanne, although he could not see it, probably emanated from her mental and physical failure to grow old gracefully coupled with the effect her son’s mental issue were having on her. Maurice’s behaviour was also affecting Utter but he was less sympathetic as he himself had been an alcoholic and had weaned himself off drink and therefore he could not accept Maurice’s behaviour. Sadly Utter was overlooking Maurice’s mental issues which had little to do with drink. For Suzanne and André there were still times of unfettered sexual activity but these bouts became less frequent. The new wealth of the couple could not compensate for their troubles and could not fix them.

Suzanne, Maurice and André in their studio

André Utter began to have love affairs and Suzanne was aware of his infidelity and strove to stop them but probably knew the situation was beyond redemption. She believed the reason for her husband’s infidelity was her fading looks whereas in reality it was probably due to her fragile mental state that had killed their relationship. Utter’s amorous trysts did not make him happy for very long as the women, aware of his wealth, were ever demanding. Soon he could not differentiate between their love for him and their love for his money. When one of his affairs ended disastrously, as they all did, he would return to Suzanne and beg her forgiveness. The locals were well aware of the situation between Suzanne and André and Suzanne being aware of this, ensured that everybody should be aware of her selfless magnanimity in forgiving her errant husband. As his sensual liaisons were not giving him the pleasure any more he turned back to drink as being drunk allowed him to escape reality and distance himself from his many lovers and the acerbic tongue of his wife. He would constantly bemoan his lot in life. Nobody loved him or his paintings any more. During his drunken outbursts he would become vile and malicious and Suzanne suddenly saw a different André. This was not the man she fell so deeply in love with back in 1908.

Suzanne tried to console herself by throwing herself back into her art which was still commanding a high price and the fact that her son’s works realised four or five times more that hers did not bother her; in fact she was proud of Maurice’s achievements. The subjects in her paintings changed. Gone were the nude studies to be replaced by still life depictions often featuring flowers which were painted in somewhat crude colours which she always liked using. She still went back alone to her chateau and host luncheons and dinner parties. Her extravagant lifestyle carried on. She would feed her dogs with only the best faux-filets and her cats feasted on caviar. People looked her as being a foolish old woman but she continued undaunted.

Bouquet de fleurs devant une fenêtre à Saint-Bernard by Suzanne Valadon (1926)

In 1924 Maurice voluntarily placed himself in a Paris sanatorium which was close by at Ivry. Maurice was still unable to accept that he had mental issues and put down his problems solely to his alcohol addiction. Suzanne was heartbroken that at the time of her son’s greatest artistic triumphs he was hell-bent on destroying himself. It could be that for the first time in her life she realised that the symptoms Maurice displayed as a very young child was the onset of his mental issues and could not forgive herself for not doing more then to try and cure what was ailing her son. Once Maurice left the sanatorium Suzanne took him off to the chateau and employed a male nurse to look after him. She tended to all his needs. She fed him. She dressed him and would go for long walks with him and at night she would sit in a chair next to his be until he fell asleep. André made a number of visits to the chateau but the romance and the love he had for the place had gone and the tantrums and behaviour of Maurice now simply annoyed him. Later he reflected on this saying:

“…This Eden was transformed into a real hell. I thought we had bought the place for peace. But Maurice was able to scream and shout about to his heart’s content. Suzanne replied in kind. And only the walls and the fish in the Saône listened to them…”

Officials at the Bernheim Jeuene gallery were beginning to worry about Suzanne’s profligacy and so as to protect the interests of their co-client, Maurice Utrillo, purchased a house for him in the Avenue Junot and put it in his name. It was a modern building with a studio and a small garden which Suzanne enjoyed tending. Gardening and flowers were the one and only thing Suzanne loved about life. Utter remained in their house at No. 12 rue Cortot as it still had memories for him of the beautiful woman he had once loved and the pictures he had once painted. Years later, after Suzanne had died, Utter wrote to a friend:

“…Always I dream of the rue Cortot and the beloved Suzanne. When we first moved there, how beautiful everything was – except for the gossips! And I knew then that it was the place I should always keep in my heart. Every man has a home. He is lost if he does not treasure it…”

Suzanne Valadon at work in her studio (1926)

Suzanne’s art was still appreciated and in 1929 she was invited to show in the Exhibition of Contemporary Art – Women and Flowers and in the same year she exhibited work in the Painters, Self-Portraits exhibition. It was at this exhibition that she showed her extraordinary nude self-portrait which featured her as an aging woman gazing into a mirror. In 1932 Suzanne, Maurice and André had a joint exhibition of their work at Gallerie Moos in Geneva and they were all delighted with sales figures. That year Suzanne had a one woman exhibition of her paintings, drawings and etchings at the Galleries Georges Petit in Paris. It was an outstanding success. One of the visitors to the exhibition was Suzanne’s friend from her chateau days, the then Mayor of Lyons Édouard Marie Herriot who also served three times as Prime Minister and for many years as President of the Chamber of Deputies. Of the exhibition he wrote:

“…Alive as Springtime itself and, like Spring, clear and ordered without interpretation, Suzanne Valadon pursues her magnificent and silent work of painting……. I think of the words of Théopile Gautier ‘Summer is a colourist, winter a draftsman’. To us who admire and love her art, Suzanne Valadon is springtime – a creature in whose sharp, incisive forms we find fountains of life, the spontaneity of renewed day-to-day living. And those matters of the nineteenth century whose names we revere, I marvel that so scrupulous a respect for truth of form is able to achieve such a fete of colour and movement…”

Suzanne also had another troubling matter to deal with. What was to become of Maurice when she died? Her answer to that was that he should marry. Suzanne did not want to lose “control” of her son but believed a kind and dedicated woman would be the ideal wife for her troubled son. One candidate Suzanne had in mind was André Utter’s sister Gabrielle. Gabrielle, now in her thirties, had like André come from a humble background. She was a very caring person, deeply religious and not at all unattractive. In some ways she pitied Maurice which was a kind of love but in a maternal or sisterly sense. She and Maurice would talk together for hours and did all things close friends would do but this was not a physical relationship. After four years of this “courtship”, Suzanne, tired of waiting, forced the issue of marriage with Maurice but he was horrified with the suggestion and replied vitriolic ally:

“…I’ve had enough tragedy in my family with one of that family…”

An official delegation of the government descended on Chateau de Bernard to formally present Maurice with the Cross of the Legion de Honor in 1927 for his services to Art, for by this time he was an internationally acclaimed artist. I have to admit that whilst researching this blog I read that the award was in 1928 and other sources said 1929!

Portrait of her son Maurice Utrillo by Suzanne Valadon

In January 1935, now in her sixty-ninth year, Suzanne was taken seriously ill and rushed to the American Hospital at Neuilly where she was diagnosed with uremic poisoning. One of her visitors was Lucie Valore, who had reverted to her maiden name and who many years ago was Lucie Pauwels, who visited Suzanne with her banker husband to buy some of her paintings. Her husband had died two years earlier. What happened and what was said at Suzanne’s bedside depends on the version of the story you wish to believe. According to Suzanne, Lucie had simply come to visit her and during the visit had said that as Suzanne was unable to look after Maurice she would take on the role as carer. However Lucie remembered the visit differently as she simply remembered Suzanne’s anguished questions as to who would look after her son and on hearing those tormented pleas had volunteered to take up the burden that Suzanne had borne for such a long time. Who knows what the true version of events was, but for sure it was easy to realise that it was the start of a contest for who should bear the responsibility for looking after Maurice Utrillo. When Suzanne had planned a wife for Maurice she always believed she could still control him and his life. She wanted a compliant wife for Maurice one whom she could manipulate. However she realised right from the start that Lucie Valore was not a person she could control or manipulate and so she desperately tried to end the relationship. It did not work for Maurice made the decision to rid himself of the Montmartre life and replace it with a life with the banker’s widow. Maurice Utrillo and Lucie Valore were married in a civil ceremony at the Montmartre mairie and later in a religious ceremony at Angoulème. Although Suzanne was present at the civil ceremony she refused to attend the religious one.

Suzanne Valadon by Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen

The newlyweds remained in Angoulème for twelve months and Lucie took on both the role as Carer for Maurice but also as his business manager which had once been looked after by André Utter. Lucie in a way controlled Maurice by carefully rationing his alcohol consumption so that it would not affect his artistic output. Lucie was an astute business manager as she controlled the output of his work to the art dealers so as to artificially raise the value of his paintings. His paintings grew in value and with this increased income the couple bought a large house with extensive grounds in the fashionable town of Le Vésinet, to the north west of Paris. Despite Lucie’s attempts to win over the support of Suzanne, her attempts failed and slowly Suzanne’s contact with her son lessened. Although she was aware that Lucie had controlled Maurice’s outbursts it could be that she resented the fact that Lucie had succeeded where she had failed. Suzanne had lost her mother, her husband and now her son what was left in her life? The answer came in the form of another young aspiring artist, Gazi. He was a young man with a swarthy collection and rumour had it that he was the son of a mogul emperor. Locals referred to him as Gazi the Tartar but for Suzanne he was simply a young artist from Provence whom she befriended. He eventually lived with her and looked after her like a devoted son with his mother. He would sit with her in the evenings and listen to her tales of the past, about Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Renoir and the little Master, Degas.

In May 1937 Suzanne was invited to attend the Women Painters Exhibition at the Petit Palais in Paris. She had several of her latest paintings on show as well as some of her earlier work. It was a celebration of French female artists and along with her works were paintings by Vigée le Brun, Berthe Morisot, Eva Gonzalèz and Sonia Turk. She spent hours critically viewing all the works of art and that evening she spoke to a friend who had accompanied her to the exhibition:

“…You know, chérie, I often boasted about my art because I thought that was what people expected – for an artist to boast. I’m very humble after what we have seen this afternoon. The women of France can paint too. But do you know, chérie, I think God made me France’s greatest woman painter…”

The grave of Suzanne Valadon at the Cimetière parisien, St. Ouen.

In April, 1938, Suzanne Valadon was sat before her easel painting a floral still life when she was struck down by a stroke. Neighbours heard her cry out and rushed inside to help her and found her lying motionless on the studio floor. She was rushed to hospital but the next day, the 7^th April1938, she passed away, aged 73. Her daughter in law, Lucie, took care of the funeral arrangements as her husband, Suzanne’s son, Maurice, was in a state of collapse at home in Le Vésinet. A funeral service was held at the Church of Saint Peter of Montmartre on April 9th. The church was crowded to see the old lady, the great painter, begin her last journey. Her husband André Utter was there and inconsolable. His once greatest love had finally achieved peace. She was buried in Cimetière parisien de St Ouen.

Suzanne Valadon (Marie-Clémentine Valadon) 23 Sept 1865 - 7 Apr 1938 — Suzanne Valadon
(Marie-Clémentine Valadon)
23 Sept 1865 – 7 Apr 1938

André Utter became the owner of the castle to the death of Suzanne Valadon in 1938. He sold it in 1945 and died in Paris a few years later in 1948. Suzanne’s son Maurice Utrillo died on 5 November 1955, and was buried in the Cimitière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre and not in the family grave as Suzanne had planned. In 1963, eight years after the death of her husband, Utrillo’s wife Lucie, founded the Association Maurice Utrillo, which housed a collection of documents and photographs recording the history of the lives of her and her husband as well as Suzanne Valadon and André Utter. Lucy Utrillo died in 1965.

When I started writing about the life and works of Suzanne Valadon I had no idea that it would stretch over seven separate blogs. The more I wrote the more fascinated I became and the more I read about her life. In the end I could not bear to leave out little bits of information I had just gleaned. At one point I had decided not to go into too much detail about her son, Maurice Utrillo, but I soon realised that as he played such a key role in Suzanne’s life, it was important that I examined his relationship with his mother and grandmother and later his relationship with Suzanne’s lover Paul Mousis and her husband André Utter.

What did you make of Suzanne’s life? Were you less sympathetic with her lot in life believing she brought all her problems upon herself? How did you feel about her relationship with her son Maurice? Did you blame her for paying too little attention to him when he was a young child and by doing so, allowed his mental issues to worsen irrevocably or do you think that once she had been told by the doctors that Maurice “would grow out of it”, it was all she had to go on? So can you empathise with her?

For me, I felt sadness for her when she realised she was losing her greatest asset, an asset that in so many ways shaped her life. The asset was her beauty but as we all know, one cannot hold on to it forever.

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Most of my information came from a book I read on the life of Suzanne Valadon entitled The Valadon Drama, The Life of Suzanne Valadon, written by John Storm in 1923.

Other sites I visited to find some pictures were:

http://lapouyette-unddiedingedeslebens.blogspot.co.uk/

http://youngbohemia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/suzanne-valadon_8445.html

http://www.messynessychic.com

The Blog: It’s about time : http://bjws.blogspot.co.uk

Suzanne Valadon. Part 6 – André Utter, the War and a change in circumstances

Self Portrait with Family (André Utter, Madeleine Valadon and Maurice Utrillo) by Suzanne Valadon (c.1910) — Self Portrait with Family
(André Utter, Madeleine Valadon and Maurice Utrillo)
by Suzanne Valadon (c.1910)

My last blog about Suzanne Valadon ended with the appearance on the scene of André Utter, a handsome young artist. Utter and Suzanne’s son Maurice slowly became friends as they both had a shared love of art and soon they became inseparable. Suzanne was delighted that at long last her son had found a companion. Utter, a son of a plumber was three years younger than Maurice. He had done well at school and his mother had high hopes that he would eventually enter a learned profession or even the priesthood whereas his father was convinced he would follow him into his plumbing business. However Utter ignored their wishes as he was determined to become an artist and live the colourful life that went with the profession and he had strolled around the streets of Montmartre observing the artists sitting with their box of paints and easels and would try to engage them in conversation.

It was 1908 when Utter first caught site of Suzanne, who was then forty-three years old. He had been painting in a street at Montmagny with his friend Edmond Heuzé and as he wrote later:

“…She passed by, ignoring us but I began to dream about her…”

She had blossomed into a true beauty – small in stature, but with a voluptuous figure which exuded sensuality. Later Maurice introduced Utter to Suzanne at his home at Pierrefitte-Montmagny and Utter recalls that first meeting:

“…That evening Maurice told his mother about our meeting. His mother was pleased. Apparently she thought I should be a good influence on him. The next day Maurice introduced me to her. She was a young woman I had been dreaming about! She showed me two of her paintings, some pastels, some drawings and some etchings. I left on a cloud…”

Utter during his late teens would become a leading figure of a group of young men who aspired to become great artists. These self-taught young artists would try to emulate the established painters of Montmartre who they looked upon as their “role models”. The young men, like their “role models” would paint en plein air by day and drink heavily at night. Their favoured drink would be the powerful green spirit, known as “la fée verte” – absinthe. After a number of glasses of absinthe they too, like their elders, experienced the dream-like effect it gave them after which they would fully experiment and sample the pleasures of love and sex! Utter enjoyed copying the mannerisms of the street artists and at the age of thirteen he would often be seen wandering the streets with a pipe clenched between his teeth.

When Utter and Suzanne met in 1908 it was around the time that she had started to become disillusioned with her life at the big house in Montmagny and the bourgeois lifestyle she had thrust upon her by her “husband” Paul Mousis. Mousis began to be aware of her disillusionment and in a desperate attempt to make things better he suggested they moved back to Montmartre and just used the Montmagny house as a weekend retreat. Mousis rented a house at No.12 rue Cortot which had a separate studio attached. The problem was he had made this gesture too late because Suzanne’s passion for the bourgeois lifestyle had waned months earlier and her relationship with Mousis had been in freefall with fierce arguments between them becoming the norm. Another cause of their arguments was their differing views on how best to deal with the mental health issues her son, Maurice, which he was now frequently and more violently displaying. Suzanne was wilting under the intolerable stress of having to pretend to be the happy “housewife” but at the same time she was well aware that her comfortable lifestyle was solely due to the wealth of Mousis. Her dilemma was simple. Was she prepared to forego the luxuries his wealth brought her and if she did leave him what would happen to Maurice?

One day in 1909 whilst standing outside her home on rue Cortot she saw André Utter and she invited him in and from this meeting came her painting entitled Adam and Eve, which now hangs in the Musée National d’Art Moderne, at the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris. She posed as Eve whilst Utter posed as Adam. She is fully naked whilst his genitals are hidden from view by carefully placed leaves. Strangely there is no facial interaction between the two figures and although he has his hand on her wrist to try and stop her pulling the apple from the tree, there seems no relationship between man and woman. The painting was exhibited at that year’s Salon d’Automne and what pleased Suzanne more than just its inclusion at the exhibition was the fact that it was hung next to her son’s painting entitled Pont Notre Dame. Later Utter posed for her two versions of The Joy of Life which Suzanne completed in 1910 and 1911.

It was around this time that Utter and Suzanne’s son Maurice, shared the same lodgings at No.5 Impasse de Guelma and it was here that Suzanne would regularly meet up with Utter and eventually became his lover. One would have thought that Suzanne would want to keep this love affair a secret so that no word of it got back to Mousis but that was not the case as often the pair would sit hand in hand at café tables, staring into each other’s eyes like lovesick teenagers and they seem unconcerned that their intimate relationship was on show to the world. Utter loved, and was totally fascinated, by Suzanne despite the twenty year age difference. The one artistic thing Utter brought to the relationship was his persuasion and her acceptance that she should move away from sketching and concentrate on oil painting.

Portrait of her Son Maurice Utrillo, his Grandmother Madeleine and the Dog, by Suzanne Valadon (1910)

Although Utter and Suzanne were lovers and didn’t hide the fact from anybody, Suzanne still lived with Mousis and this eventually became intolerable and so, in 1909, she finally decided to leave him, packed up her belongings and along with her two cats, her German Shepherd dog, Pierret, and a goat, left the house at Montmagny and went to live with Utter and her son. Two years later they would move to her former home at No.12 rue Cortot. Soon the apartment and studio became a meeting place for young aspiring artists and poets. Artists such as the Fauvists Raoul Dufy and Georges Braque and the Italian figurative painter Amedeo Modigliani were frequent visitors. Modigliani was twenty-five at the time and had settled into life in Le Bateau Lavoir, a commune for penniless artists.

The year was 1912 and, even as early as then, there was rumblings of a possible war in Europe. Two years later in June 1914 it all came to a head when the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, were shot dead by Gavril Princip on the streets of Sarajevo whilst making an inspection of the town. A month later the French Socialist leader and pacifist, Jean Jaures, who had been an advocate of rapprochement with the Germans was gunned down as he sat in a café by a twenty-nine year old French Nationalist, Raoul Villain, who was an advocate of France going to war with Germany. Three days later Germany declared war on France. A feeling of patriotism swept through Montmartre as it did in the rest of France and as was the case in England, young Frenchmen rushed to army recruiting offices and celebrated what they believed would be a short and joyous war against the loathsome Imperial German forces but sadly, like the young Englishmen who marched to war, their euphoria was short lived.

André Utter was one of the first to enlist. He attended the army recruiting centre in February 1915 and was accepted and sent to the training centre at Argentan. He eventually joined the 158^th Infantry Regiment at Fontainebleau. Before he left for the front he and Suzanne were married which ensured that she would receive an allowance from the military as a soldier’s wife. She had been desperate to stop him enlisting but struggled to find a way. Years earlier her body would have been enough to persuade a lover to be attentive and never to want to leave her side but she was now forty-nine years of age and Utter was just twenty-eight. Suzanne was more and more conscious that her body was fighting a losing battle against the relentless march of time, and this despite her frequent changing of her date of birth!

The Moulin la Galette (c.1918) by Maurice Utrillo

The year 1915 was Suzanne’s annus horribilis. In June that year, her mother Madeleine died aged 84. In August her son Maurice was placed in an asylum at Villejuif where he remained for three months and of course her husband was fighting a war. Suzanne struggled to keep painting whilst her husband was away. In 1917, however, the Bernheim Jeune Gallery in Paris, staged by their artistic director, Felix Fénéon, a long time admirer of Suzanne’s work, put on a joint exhibition of the works by Suzanne and her son, along with some paintings by her husband André Utter. It was not only the works of the three that drew in the crowds but the extravagant and titillating tales that surrounded the trio. Sales of the work were unfortunately poor but this was probably due to the war. However a nude painting by Suzanne and the painting entitled Moulin de la Galette by Utrillo were purchased by the eminent French fashion designer Paul Poiret. Later, Poiret would tell his clients how chic it would be if they, like him, owned an original work by Suzanne Valadon or her son Maurice Utrillo and of course this led to a chain-reaction of feverish buying by the likes of the prestigious art dealers in the Rue du Faubourg St Honoré.

In that same year, 1917, Utter was wounded in the shoulder at the battle in the Champagne region of France and in January 1918 he was dispatched to an army recuperation centre at Belleville-sur-Saône. Suzanne immediately rushed to his side eager to tell him about the increasing sales of her paintings, drawings and etchings. It was a joyous reunion. She dedicated her time to him, looking after his every need and for three months they lived in their newly-discovered idyll. Utter was released from the army in January 1920 and returned to Paris to be with his wife and her son Maurice. Suzanne was now fifty-four years old and even she had to admit that her looks, which once stirred the loins of most men, were beginning to fade. She craved admiration. She craved attention and would dress and act in the most strange fashion so as to achieve her aims. She was desperate for Utter to admire and desire her as he once did when they first met. She was hyper-sensitive to his comments and she would be angered and sulk if his words were not the ones she was hoping for. Utter, in turn, was disappointed that those idyllic days at Belleville had not carried on in Paris. Their arguments, which became more frequent, were more intense, more acidic and more vociferous.

Following the cessation of the First World War money became freer once again and people began to cash in on their war savings and head for Paris to buy art. The wealthy descended on the French capital and the raised prices this buying spree had caused did not daunt them. Many bargain hunters headed to Montmartre in search of a bargain buy and it was around this time that a wealthy Belgian banker, Monsieur Pawels and his wife, Lucie, a former actress called on Suzanne. Lucie wanted to be great friends with Suzanne but she was not wholeheartedly sold on reciprocating this friendship. Sales of Suzanne, Maurice and Utter’s works continued to grow. Whether she became slightly jealous of her husband and son’s sales we may never know but she was always adamant that her work was the best and she of the three was the most accomplished painter. She was quite outspoken about this, once saying:

“…I do not seek to be known but to be renowned. For I shall go to the Louvre. That will be my glory…”

In 1920, with help from friends, she was elected as an associate of the Société des Artistes Indépendents. As time went buy she became vainer, more arrogant, and more egotistical. The person who suffered most from this attitude was her husband, Utter. She demanded of him his admiration of her as a great artist and almost a recognition that she was a superior being. She demanded his subservience. One can only wonder what Utter thought of his situation living with a wife and her son, both of whom were suffering from mental issues.

Suzanne Valadon, Her Son Maurice Utrillo (seated, right) and André Utter, (1920)

In 1921 Utter arranged a joint exhibition of Suzanne and Maurice’s work at Berthe Weill’s gallery. It was an outstanding success and soon works by Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo were commanding high prices. This sudden surge of demand for their work caused the Gallerie Bernheim-Jeune in the summer of 1923 to offer Suzanne and Maurice a contract guaranteeing them a minimum annual payment of a million francs (the equivalent of $60,000 at the time) for all their future works. This was a turning point in the lives of Suzanne, her husband and her son. It was today’s equivalent of us winning the lottery. Their life was about to change.

Suzanne Valadon Part 5. Her son Maurice Utrillo, her husband Paul Mousis and her lover Erik Satie

Suzanne Valadon and her son Maurice (c.1889)

My look at the life of Suzanne Valadon would not be complete if I didn’t spend some time looking at the early years of her son Maurice and how he had such an effect on her life. In my earlier blogs I told you that Suzanne, who was eighteen years at the time, gave birth to her son on December 26^th 1883. She was unmarried at the time and would never reveal the identity of the father. She decided on the name Maurice for her son, reasoning that as none of her previous or present lovers had that Christian name it would therefore not give a hint as to who actually was Maurice’s father. However in January 1891 she persuaded one of her former lovers, Miguel Utrillo to agree to sign the Act of Recognition naming himself as Maurice’s father. The document was signed on February 27^th 1891and it stated:

“…27 February 1891. Act of Recognition of Maurice, Masculine Sex. Born 26 December 1883 and inscribed on the 29^th following at the mairie 18^th arondissement as son of Marie Valadon and unnamed father. Set up by us Charles-Paul-Auguste Bernard, assistant to the mayor, officer of the civil state 9^th arondissement, on the declaration made by Michael (Miguel) Utrillo, 28 years of age, journalist of 50 Boulevard de Clichy, who has recognised as his son the aforementioned Maurice. In the presence of Charles Mahut, 44 years of age, employed, residing in Paris, 5b Impasse Rodier, and of Félix Dunion, 44 years of age, waiter, residing in Paris, 3 rue Saint Rustique, who have signed with the petitioner and ourselves after reading. Paris. 8 April 1891…”

One should note that the document refers to Suzanne by her original Christian name Marie (Marie-Clémentine) and not Suzanne, the name she changed it to on the advice of Toulouse-Lautrec. So was Miguel really Maurice’s father, if not, why would he sign such a document? It was not as if it was a “spur of the moment” decision as one can see by the dates at the start and the end of the document the process took almost six weeks to complete which would have given Miguel time to consider what he had been asked to sign and time to back out of the agreement. Whether Miguel was the father we will probably never know. She had many lovers as a teenager including Pierre-Puvis de Chavannes, the French artist. There was also Adrian Boissy, the drunken accountant from an insurance company she met at the Moulin de Galette one night, and who according to Suzanne, took her to his home, plied her with drink and raped her.

There is probably no greater love than that which a mother gives to her children and although I am sure there was a maternal love between Suzanne and Maurice her maternal instinct must have been sorely tested as Maurice was not a normal child. During his very early days Maurice was looked after solely by Suzanne’s mother, Madeleine, and their Breton maid, Catherine, whilst Suzanne pursued her career as an artist’s model. To say that Maurice was not a typical child would be something of an understatement. At times he would lie peacefully on his grandmother’s lap and then suddenly his body would become stiff and he would shudder violently, biting his lip until it bled and hold his breath until his whole face turned purple. In later childhood this small waif-like little boy would throw himself on the floor in fits of rage. Suzanne’s grandmother’s only solution was to give him some watered down wine to try and calm him down. It was not Suzanne that spent the most time with him but his grandmother. It was she who comforted him during his fits and rages. It was she who fed and clothed him. It was she who shared her bed at night with him. It was she who gave him the nickname Mamau which stayed with him all his life. Madeleine had spent little time or had shown much love towards her daughter Suzanne and she was now probably trying not to make the same mistake with her grandson. In turn, Maurice loved his grandmother and revelled in her company. Suzanne was not jealous of this grandmother/grandson close relationship, in fact as she had tried, without success, to please her mother all her life she was pleased that she had “given” her son to her mother as this had evoked so much pleasure.

Nu assis se coiffant by Suzanne Valadon (1896)

At the age of five Suzanne enrolled Maurice at a nursery school, Pension La Flaiselle, in the rue Labat. Her son hated the school, in fact he was terrified by it and yet although knowing his fear, Suzanne never walked the long distance up the hill to reach the place which, by doing so, would have afforded her son a modicum of comfort. This terror Maurice felt began to have an effect on life at home as the older he got the more he would lapse into spells of depression often followed by bouts of extreme violence which manifested itself into the smashing of the household china and ripping down the curtains. Despite the doctor’s prognosis that he would “grow out of it”, the violent episodes continued but at no time could Suzanne see the correlation between his mood swings and his unhappiness at the school. Suzanne saw his terror of school life as a form of cowardice and whimpishness for one has to remember that as a child of Maurice’s age, Suzanne was completely fearless. Suzanne showed Maurice little sympathy; on the contrary, she was embarrassed by his antics. When things got out of hand at home Suzanne would just leave the house to party or be with a lover and leave Maurice for her mother to handle.

Maurice playing with slingshot by Suzanne Valadon (1895)

It was in 1888 that a new lover for Suzanne came on to the scene in the form of a young wealthy banker, Paul Mousis, whom she had seen around the café-cabaret establishments, Auberge du Clou and the Chat Noir. Mousis would mingle with the artists who were at the Auberge du Clou and because he was a generous man, he would keep them supplied with drinks, and by this gesture, he was accepted as “one of their own”. The Auberge was just a short distance from Toulouse-Lautrec’s home and Mousis along with his new friends would often visit the painter’s home and join one of Lautrec’s frequent soirées and it was here that he met Suzanne, who was acting as Lautrec’s unofficial hostess. Mousis was immediately besotted with this beautiful young French woman and within a few weeks of their first meeting he had proposed marriage. She refused him but said that she would readily become his lover. Her reasoning was quite simple. Being Mousis’ lover meant that she was on equal terms with him, whereas marrying Mousis would make her his property and in some way subservient.

During her late teens and early twenties Suzanne had a number of lovers and would often tire of them very quickly. Mousis offered her not only his companionship and love-making but financial stability and yet Suzanne, three months into their relationship, strayed, this time towards the strange enigmatic musician and composer, Erik Satie whom she met whilst he was playing the piano at Le Chat Noir café. Twenty-one year old Satie was a dropout from the Paris Conservatoire, who had given up the bourgeois lifestyle he had whilst living with his parents, and moved to the bohemian lifestyle of the Montmartrois. One would have thought that Paul Mousis would have been horrified at this turn of events but he wasn’t, maybe because he too was having a liaison with another woman! Satie was besotted with Suzanne. He even proposed marriage to her on their first meeting. He lavished upon her numerous gifts, took her for walks in the Luxembourg Gardens and strange as it may seem, he would often go out in the evening with Suzanne and Mousis. This was indeed a ménage à trois. However the leading role in this love triangle was always Suzanne. She choreographed the love triangle. She constantly fussed around Satie looking after all his needs, such as feeding him, darning his socks and cleaning for him. In Ornella Volta’s 1989 book, Satie seen through his letters, the depth of his love for Suzanne can be clearly seen. He wrote to his brother in 1893:

“…I shall have great difficulty in regaining possession of myself, loving this little person as I have loved her …she was able to take all of me. Time will do what at this moment I cannot do…”

Mousis was not deterred by the presence of Satie as he felt that Suzanne was the only woman who could satisfy him sexually. However all good things had to come to an end and Mousis became tired of the love triangle and told Suzanne it must end. She refused to give up Satie and so Mousis went off for six months. He did return and once again took up with Suzanne but now it was the turn of Satie to complain and tell Suzanne to end her relationship with Mousis. Once again and highlighting her control of the love triangle she refused and Satie ended the ménage à trois being unable to share her with Mousis.

Portrait of Erik Satie by Suzanne Valadon (c.1892)

In 1894 Suzanne and Mousis set up house at No. 2 rue Cortot, just two doors away from the house belonging to Satie. After a short while, neighbours would refer to Suzanne as Madame Mousis. She did visit Satie and it was in 1892 in his one-room house, two doors away, at No. 6 rue Cortot, that she had painted the twenty-six year old musician’s portrait. It is entitled Portrait of Erik Satie and it can now be found in the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. It was Suzanne’s first attempt at portraiture in oil. It measures just 22 x 41 cms and because the height of the portrait is double that of its width there is an elongated look to it. Satie almost fills the canvas. His facial expression in this painting is one of dourness. His red lips are partly hidden by his waxed moustache and the pince-nez glasses give him an intellectual air.

In the summer of 1886 Suzanne and Satie parted company in acrimonious circumstances. It is not clear what happened to initiate this final breakdown of their relationship, but final it was. It is alleged that Satie was devastated, hurling himself on the floor weeping bitter tears and bitterly declaring that he was left with “nothing but an icy loneliness that fills the head with emptiness and the heart with sadness”. In 1889 Satie left Montmartre and his one and only true love, Suzanne Valadon. It was also 1896 that Mousis and Suzanne were said to have married, but did they ever officially marry? Although Mousis was often referred to as “Suzanne’s first husband” there is no official record of their marriage or divorce in either the mairies of Montmartre or Pierrefitte-Montmagny and maybe when her friends talk of her marriage to Mousis it was just a figurative expression rather than a literal one.

Nu à la toilette by Suzanne Valadon (1892)

If we go back four years to 1892 there was a change in Suzanne Valadon’s lifestyle. Her wealthy lover, Paul Mousis had tired of the bohemian lifestyle of Montmartre and wanted to return to his former bourgeois lifestyle which he believed befitted a successful banker and so he decided to lease a house in the village of Pierrefitte, situated in the Seine valley, and which lay twenty kilometres north of Paris. This was to be a weekend retreat for himself, Suzanne and her family. Suzanne’s grandmother, Madeleine, was delighted to move back to a quiet rural village similar to the one she had been brought up in. She was now in her late sixties, a somewhat wizened old woman who suffered badly from rheumatism and who was still addicted to alcohol and spent much of her time in a semi-drunken haze. Her one love, her one great pleasure in life was her grandson Maurice. He still suffered from swiftly changing moods and his grandmother could only control his uncontrollable rages by plying him with glasses of wine. However the alcohol did not always have the desired effect and instead of calming him down it lead to him demanding more glasses of it until he virtually passed out. He had become an alcoholic.

In 1894 Mousis, who loved living in the area decided to build the family a new house atop the Butte Pinson which was between the village of Pierrefitte and the village of Montmagny. Suzanne was still uncertain about the move away from Montmartre so Mousis told her that the building of the new house was simply a business investment. He also tried to persuade Suzanne that to achieve a great artistic standing she needed to move away from the chaos of Montmartre life. As a compromise he agreed that Suzanne should keep her Montmartre studio in the rue Cortot. Suzanne would commute back and forth between their home at Montmagny and her studio in Montmartre by her own pony and trap which Mousis had given her. Soon she began to appreciate life at Montmagny and developed a passion for flowers and the enjoyment of gardening.

Notwithstanding her new lifestyle and her love of nature, she was not able to ignore the ever-increasing problem she had in her life – her son Maurice and his worsening mental behaviour. By his teenage years he like his grandmother had become addicted to alcohol but now it was not just wine, it was now the “green devil” itself, absinthe. In his late teens he had also become much more violent during his uncontrollable rages and Mousis and Suzanne consulted many doctors and psychiatrists. It culminated in 1901, just before his nineteenth birthday, when during a particularly nasty rage a doctor was called to forcibly sedate him and he was committed to the asylum of Saint-Anne where he remained for three months. This was a terrible time for Suzanne as it was during her son’s confinement she also learnt of the death of her good friend and mentor, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, who had died in a sanatorium at the age of thirty-seven. The cause of death was partly put down to complications arising from his alcoholism and Suzanne must have wondered what her son’s fate would be.

Whilst Maurice remained in the asylum, Suzanne filled her life by concentrating on her art and spent nearly all the time at her studio in rue Cortot where she completed a series of nude drawings for which she served as her own model. Maurice was finally released from the asylum and according to his mother, “he looked better than he has for years – and so beautiful”. He was off drink but was very listless, avoided everybody and sat reading his books. A turning point came when Suzanne persuaded him to take up art as a hobby. Reluctant at first, he soon took a liking to it and within two years, would spend most of his time in his mother’s studio in Montmartre. In that time, he had completed no fewer than 150 works. By the age of twenty-three he was living in her studio. The only think he disliked about life in Montmartre was the people. People everywhere and he just wanted to shut himself away from them all. They annoyed him and soon the rages returned and to cope with the rages he turned back to drink and would, during the day, paint with excruciating hangovers. Despite his abhorrence of people he would still go out and wander around Montmartre painting en plein air. When buoyed by alcohol he would engage in conversation with others in the drinking establishments he frequented. He always introduced himself as Maurice Valadon, adamantly shunning the name “Utrillo”. The drinking resulted in his old habits returning – the violent outbursts of rage often culminating in fights with the locals.

One day in 1909, which was to have an effect on his life and the life of his mother Suzanne, he was sitting outside painting when he was approached by a young man who introduced himself as a fellow artist. He was André Utter.

…………………………. to be continued.

Suzanne Valdon. Part 4 – Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas

In my last blog, Part 3 of the life story of Suzanne Valadon, I talked about her relationship with the French painter Pierre-August Renoir and looked at his 1883 Dance Series of painting, two of which featured Suzanne. At the end of the blog I stated that Renoir had nurtured Suzanne’s interest in art. I suppose nurturing was the wrong word to use as although Renoir’s art influenced Suzanne it was more his dismissive attitude to her early attempts to paint and sketch that had an effect on her. Renoir had a somewhat condescending attitude towards her attempts at drawing and painting and this along with his preference for Aline Charigot over her rankled Suzanne all her life. However Renoir’s indifference regarding her artistic attempts galvanised the young woman in her mission to prove him wrong and at the same time it fostered in her a desire to become a great artist in her own right, for if nothing else, Suzanne was a very headstrong and determined character and one who would never accept failure lightly.

Suzanne Valadon did however receive valuable help and support with her quest to become an artist. This help came from two completely different sources. Her initial help came from a young French artist who had just come on to the Parisian art scene and it was through his good auspices that she was introduced to an elderly artist who, at the time, was viewed as The Master of all the French artists. The young artist was Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Master was none other than Edgar Degas.

My Utrillo at the Age of Nine by Suzanne Valadon (1892)

Unabashed by Renoir’s attitude Suzanne set about sketching with pencil and charcoal. She sketched avidly. Any free time she had from her modelling engagements were spent sketching. It was in the Spring of 1887 that she first met the twenty-two year old, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, who had a top floor studio at No.7 rue Tourlaque, the same building in which Suzanne, her mother Madeleine and her son Maurice were living. Toulouse Lautrec was once described as having a grotesque appearance. At the age of fourteen, he slipped on a floor and broke his left thigh bone. The following year, while out walking, he fell and broke his right thigh bone. Neither leg healed properly. It is now believed that this was due to a genetic disorder. After these breaks, his legs never grew any longer which resulted in him attaining a height, as an adult, of just 1.54 m (5 ft 1 in) despite have a full sized torso. His walk was just an embarrassing shuffle. Add to this physical deformity his oversized nose, his dark and greasy skin and full black beard which masked his face, one can envisage the physical and mental torment he must have suffered. However, despite this, he was quite a gregarious person and had a buoyant character and soon after setting up his studio it took on a new role as a meeting place for local artists and members of the literary set. Lautrec would often provide food and drink at these meetings and conversation would often centre on art, artists and artistic trends. Suzanne Valadon often helped Lautrec with these get-togethers and soon she was considered the unofficial hostess of Lautrec’s soirées. One should remember that Suzanne was quite short in stature and so standing next to the diminutive Lautrec they made for an “ideal couple”. Suzanne had always been a very good looking woman and so, when standing next to him her physical beauty meant eyes were immediately focused upon her and not her little companion.

Suzanne was not “backward in coming forward” at these events and would unreservedly give her opinion on current artistic trends. As ever, her wit and the acidity of her tongue came to the fore ensuring that the evening would never be dull and of course, her physical beauty was always admired by all the male guests. As Suzanne helped Lautrec to run his parties and add her own brand of verbal entertainment at them Toulouse-Lautrec expressed his gratitude by taking an interest in her early art. He was also the first person to buy a couple of her sketches. He hung them on the wall of his lodgings and was often amused when visitors attributed them to artists such as Degas and Théopile Steinlen, the painter and printmaker, but all viewers of these works were in agreement that they had been done by an accomplished artist.

The Hangover; Portrait of Suzanne Valadon by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec (c. 1888)

Suzanne and Toulouse-Lautrec would often wile away their time together sketching. He completed a number of portraits of her but would never pose for her. One of the best portraits Toulouse Lautrec did of Suzanne was his 1888 painting entitled Gueule de Bois (The Hangover) in which we see her sprawled across a café table. She received no payment from Lautrec for modelling for this picture. It would have been unthinkable considering all the help he had given her. Soon Toulouse-Lautrec began to advise Suzanne, not just on things artistic, but everyday things such as how she should dress what hats she should wear and would often accompany her on shopping trips.

Portrait of the Artist Suzanne Valadon by Toulouse Lautrec (1885)

It was Toulouse-Lautrec who persuaded her to change her name from that which she was baptised, Marie-Clémentine, to Suzanne as he believed her birth name was just too mundane for an up-and-coming artist. Suzanne agreed to the change of name and she gave Lautrec the very first painting she completed, which had been signed “Suzanne Valadon”.

It was on the insistence of Toulouse-Lautrec that in 1887, Suzanne went to see Edgar Degas and took along some of her sketches. She recalled the time:

“…Lautrec’s great brown eyes laughed behind his thick glasses and his mouth was solemn and grave as a priest’s when he told me I must go to M. Degas with my drawings…”

When she arrived at Degas’ house for the first time, Suzanne always recalled that day stating on a number of occasions that it was “the wonderful moment of my life”. She arrived at the house in rue Victor Massé clutching her portfolio of sketches. She was extremely nervous in his presence. She recalled the time vividly. Degas took her sketches, moved to the window to see them better and slowly thumbed through them mumbling comments to himself, occasionally looking up at her. On completing his examination of her work he turned to Suzanne, who was sitting straight-backed in a chair, and uttered the words that she would never forget:

“…Yes it is true. You are indeed one of us…”

Nude getting into the Bath besides the Seated Grandmother by Suzanne Valadon (1903)

Degas, who had once described himself as simply a colourist with line, could see the merit in Suzanne’s work despite her work was in a pure and savage state and the sketches were totally without refinement, and yet there was a sense of grace about them. Suzanne and Degas became good and long-lasting friends. It was a friendship which would have, in some ways, seemed strange as Degas and Suzanne came from different backgrounds and different social classes but it could be the fact that Degas was uneasy in the company of women of his own social strata and that made Suzanne and ideal companion. During their many meetings she would show him her latest work which he would assess and give advice and she in return would tell him all the gossip and news from Montmartre, for he rarely set foot outside stating he was too ill and it was also around this time that his eyesight began to fail.

Although Suzanne Valadon was a self taught artist it is generally accepted that she owed a lot to Edgar Degas. It was he that supervised her first engravings and it was he who ensured that Ambroise Vollard, one of the most important art dealers of the time, presented an exhibition of Suzanne’s engravings at his gallery in 1895. As far as Suzanne was concerned, Edgar Degas was “The Master”, an artistic genius. Of all the artists she came across, he was the one she respected the most. She hung on his every word, basked in his praise for her work and although he had lost a number of friends due to his petulance and grumpiness, she looked on his irascibility as part of his charm and charisma. Degas could do no wrong in her eyes. Degas too loved her companionship and Suzanne Valadon was one of the few people who could call herself a friend of the great man and she was immensely proud of this mutual friendship.

……………………………………….. to be continued

Susan Valadon. Part 2 – The artist’s model

In my last blog I looked at the early life and upbringing of my featured artist, Susan Valadon. She and her mother Madeleine had moved from Limoges and had come to live in the Montmartre district of Paris. They had survived the siege of the capital by the Prussian army as well as the bloody fight between the Communards and the French government troops which followed. Suzanne had been trained as a seamstress but had ended up as a teenager working in a circus which culminated in her being injured in a fall whilst standing in for a trapeze artist. She now needed to find an alternate income source……………

A friend of Suzanne suggested that she should consider becoming an artist’s model despite the modelling profession was looked upon as a risqué form of employment and just one inevitable step from becoming the artist’s lover and it was a profession which was frowned upon in many quarters. Her mother believed that her daughter would become nothing more than a common prostitute but Suzanne, headstrong as ever, was not to be deterred. Suzanne would meet every morning at the fountain in the Place de Pigalle with other young girls and wait to see if she would be chosen by an artist. She had a lot of things going for her. She had an elfin-like vivaciousness. Her skin was soft and ivory in colour. Even though she was till just sixteen years of age her figure had ripened. She was a cross between an attractive and charming child and a self-assured voluptuous woman and more importantly ,as far as her job prospects were concerned, she was just what an artist was looking for. She was constantly being chosen to model and she adored this new life. She recalled the first time she was picked out of the waiting group of prospective models and sitting before an artist for the first time:

“…I remember the first sitting I did. I remember saying to myself over and over again ‘ This is it! This is it!’ Over and over I said it all day. I did not know why. But I knew that I was somewhere at last and that I should never leave…”

For her, modelling for artists meant that she was one of the players on the Montmartre artistic stage. Her daily routine was fixed. She would pose for the artists in the afternoons until the light started to fail, then in the evening she would accompany them to the bars and café-concerts and partake in what was known as the “green hour” – the time for relaxation in the pub, the time for stimulating conversation, but most importantly, the time for imbibing the 136 proof, anise-flavoured, green spirit, absinthe.

In 1882, when she was seventeen years of age, she was summoned by the French artist, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, to attend his studio at Neuilly. Pierre Puvis, who was fifty-seven at the time, was still a bachelor but was involved in a long lasting loving, but non-sexual, relationship with Princess Marie Cantacuzène, the wife of a Romanian nobleman. Pierre and Marie would eventually marry in 1898, a few months before both of them died, Marie in the August and Pierre in the October. Despite the forty year age gap Pierre Puvis and Suzanne became lovers and she moved into his Neuilly apartment. She was dumbstruck by the opulence of his home. This was a far cry from the lodgings she shared with her mother. Pierre and Suzanne however could not have been more dissimilar in temperament. She was wild, edgy and vocal whereas the artist was quietly spoken, laid back, and often lost in quiet contemplation. She would hanker after a night at a café-cabaret while Puvis wanted nothing more than to go for a quiet stroll with her along the banks of the Seine.

Suzanne Valadon by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1880)

Susanne Valadon modelled for Pierre Puvis de Chavannes for his pastel on paper work which he completed in 1880. The nude study was untitled but one can see the physical attraction of the model to the artist. It is a stunningly beautiful work of art. Suzanne, like many of the artists’ models had no problems with posing nude and early photograph below shows her in such a pose.

Suzanne Valadon (photo) — Suzanne Valadon
(photo)

The liaison between Pierre Puvis and Susan Valadon lasted for six months and during that time he probably became a slightly more spirited person through being around Suzanne and in return he seemed to have instilled a calming influence on the hyper young woman. It was the first time that Suzanne had been in some ways dominated by a man. It would appear to be a similar situation to the Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins scenario in Pygmalion. Inevitably the liaison came to an end. It did not end in a fiery confrontation with insults being hurled. Their liaison as lovers had run its course. It was just a quiet and mutual ending to a relationship which they had both enjoyed. Suzanne returned home to live with her mother in her one-bedroom Montmartre lodgings on the rue du Poteau but still on occasions modelled for Pierre.

Suzanne soon returned to her old ways of modelling by day and celebrating at night and one evening whilst in Le Chat Noir she met Miguel Utrillo, a Spanish engineering student who was studying in Paris. Soon the two became close friends which inevitably lead them to become lovers. Utrillo was not the first man since Puvis that Suzanne had slept with as she had quite a number of sexual partners and so maybe it was not surprising that in late summer of 1883 she became pregnant. The question on most people’s lips was – who was the father of Suzanne’s child? Her friends would question her and put forward a name, to which Suzanne, not at all upset by the questioning, would just smile and amusingly state: “It could be” or “I hope so”. Suzanne gave birth to a baby son on December 26^th 1883 after a very prolonged and painful birthing process overseen by an irritable midwife and her ever drunk mother. After giving birth Suzanne lapsed into a coma for two days. The baby was registered at the town hall in Montmartre as Maurice Valadon. Why Maurice? Suzanne’s reasoning behind the choice of name was that none of her recent lovers had the name Maurice!

Her old one-bedroom apartment in which she had been living with her mother was now not big enough and so after the birth Suzanne and her baby along with her mother Madeleine moved into a three-bedroom apartment in rue Tourlaque. This was more expensive but Suzanne was not concerned, nor had she been concerned when she was pregnant and too big to be used as an artist’s model and her money from modelling dried up. She was receiving money from an admirer or lover but she would never reveal the source of her income. Once up and about, Suzanne reverted to her nights out at the bars and clubs accompanied by different men including Miguel Utrillo.

……. to be continued

Susan Valadon, Part 1 – The early years

In my next few blogs I want to look at the life of a female who was both a great artist and artist’s model and whose name is synonymous with the artistic world of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century Montmartre. She was, and still is, loved by the feminist movement who applaud her guts and determination. She is Suzanne Valadon. I want to spend time and look at the artistic friends she made during her life and how they adored her. She was, to many artists, a model, a muse and, in some cases, a willing lover. To fully understand why her lifestyle was as it was, one must go back and examine her family roots and look at her early childhood which was , as is the case for nearly all of us, the sewing and the germination of the seed which would eventually blossom and shape our lives.

To examine her early life one needs to scrutinize the circumstances of her birth and for that it is necessary to look into the life of her family. Her mother was Madeleine Valadon who was born in the small rural village of Bessines, close to the town of Limoges. What we know of Madeleine comes from her own lips later in life and because she frequently changed the facts one needs to be careful as to what to believe. She maintained that as a teenager she had once been married to a man from Limoges named Courland and that he died in jail when she was just twenty-one years of age but by which time she had given birth to a number of his children. After his death Madeleine reverted back to her family name of Valadon and returned to her family home. As a young girl, she was taught to read and write by nuns who also taught her to stitch and sew. She then fortuitously managed to secure employment as a live-in seamstress to the well-to-do Guimbaud family who lived nearby. It was a position which she was pleased to accept and felt no grief for having to leave her children in their less than salubrious family home whilst she was living in comparative comfort close by. She soon established herself as the head of the servants in the Guimbaud household and, unlike them, even dined with the family. She remained in this employment for thirteen years but it came to an end when she once again became pregnant. According to her, the father of the child was a local miller who was killed in an accident at work. In later life she viewed the accident which killed him as divine retribution for making her pregnant!

Naturally the small Bessines community was shocked by the news of her pregnancy and lack of a husband to act as a father figure to her newborn. The Guimbaud family however treated her well and she remained in their house until her child, a daughter, was born. According to the official records, the child was baptised Marie-Clémentine Valadon on September 23^rd 1865. It was not until she was nineteen years of age that Marie-Clémentine started calling herself Suzanne and this apparently was the suggestion of her friend, the artist, Henri Toulouse Lautrec. It is also interesting to note that despite that documented official registration of her birth Suzanne always maintained she was born in 1867.

Madeleine Valadon with her daughter Suzanne

Madeleine Valadon left Bessines with her baby in January 1866 and headed for Paris. She never looked back. She never saw or communicated with her family, her other children or her former employer, the Guimbaud family, ever again and one can only wonder why she wanted this complete break from her past.

The windmills of Montmartre, taken in 1839 by Hippolyte Bayard

She arrived in Paris confidant that she would be able to earn a living as a seamstress. Madeleine Valadon was amazed at the sight that greeted her to the north of the capital city – a hill on top of which were a number of windmills, a vista which was similar to the rural views back home. The steep hill she viewed was the Mount of Martyrs, named after the execution of the first bishop of Paris, St Denis and his faithful lieutenants, St Rustique and St Éleuthère in the third century – Montmartre. Madeleine settled into lodgings at the base of the hill in the Boulevard de Rochechouart and then, with a glowing reference from the Guimbaud family, set off to procure employment as a seamstress. Her plans did not come to fruition as jobs were scarce and finally, in desperation, she had to settle for the menial job as a scrub-woman, cleaning floors whilst the wife of the concierge of her lodgings looked after Suzanne.

Madeleine, no doubt aware that for her daughter to succeed in life she had to be educated, and so arranged for a priest to teach her to read and write and then had her attend the convent run by the nuns of St Vincent de Paul as a day pupil for a continuance of her education and to be taught, as she was, to become a seamstress. However, once again her plans went awry with the start of the Franco-Prussian War which culminated in the siege of Paris by the Prussian army at the end of 1870 and the ousting of the French government, which retreated from Paris and based itself in Bordeaux. In May 1871, following the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War and the lifting of the Prussian siege of Paris, the French government returned to Versailles on the outskirts of Paris ready once again to rule the capital. However many of the Parisians, who had suffered during the Paris siege, blamed their government for their misery and deprivation which they had to endure. They remembered with bitterness the days they had to scavenge for food eating dogs, cats and rats to survive. Out of this sense of bitterness and betrayal came the rise of the Communards. The Communards were a group of working class disaffected Parisians who did not want the French government to return to control Paris. They were very active around the area where Madeleine and Suzanne lived and their bloody determination that the defeated French government would not return to Paris from their bolt-hole at Versailles set up a clash which was in fact a mini civil war and which claimed the lives of more than twenty thousand Parisians.

Suzanne, during these times of turmoil, had still attended the St Vincent de Paul convent for her lessons and during the Paris siege had been fed by the nuns from their home-grown produce. However during the Paris Commune clashes between the government forces and the Communards the fighting had been so intense that the nuns barricaded themselves in the convent and closed it down to the day pupils and so Suzanne like many others lost their opportunity for learning and being fed. Suzanne, who was six years of age and like many children of her age, revelled in not having to go to school. Her mother, on the other hand, despaired and began to drink heavily. At the end of the Paris Commune struggle at the end of May 1871 and with it, the return to law and order under the French government, the St Vincent de Paul nuns felt it safe to re-open their convent to their day pupils and Suzanne, who had enjoyed the freedom from the discipline of school life and the boredom of lessons reluctantly had to return to the confines of the convent. She rebelled and was frequently absent preferring to play in the streets and on the hill of Montmartre with new friends both children and adults. She mixed with the lowest elements of society, the prostitutes, the beggars and the thieves and loved every minute of it. Later in life she recalled those times:

“…From that day the streets of Montmartre were home to me. It was only in the streets that there was excitement and love and ideas – what other children found around their dining room tables…”

Suzanne lived a feral existence. She was small in stature and had a fierce temper and would often succumb to uncontrollable rages and on the streets of Montmartre she was often referred to as “The Little Valadon Terror”. Her mother Madeleine became more morose and apathetic as the years passed. She lost total interest in life and frequently descended into an alcoholic haze. She rarely cleaned their lodgings and seldom did any laundry. She begrudged cooking and having to feed Suzanne and when they ate at meal times they would normally eat apart. Nothing Suzanne would do would lift her mother’s spirit. Despite this lack of maternal love for Suzanne the two lived together for almost sixty years. In later life Suzanne often depicted her mother in paintings. She would nearly always portray her as being old, wrinkled and toothless but showed her hard at work.

Le Moulin de Galette by Vincent van Gogh (1886)

Montmartre since the beginning of the 19^th century was the centre of artistic life and drew artists, musicians and writers to it like a magnet. Studio garrets shot up everywhere in which the artists would paint day in and day out and in the late evenings would look for some respite and so bars and music and dance halls, such as the notorious Moulin Rouge.

L'Absinthe by Degas (1873) — L’Absinthe by Degas (1876)

The Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes, was a meeting place for the up and coming artists of the time including the “new kids on the block”, the Impressionists and it was outside this establishment that Degas depicted the two drinking companions in his famous 1876 work L’Absinthe (See My Daily Art Display June 7th 2011). Another popular establishment was Le Chat Noir, which opened in November 1881 in Boulevard Rochechouart, the same street where Madeleine and Suzanne lived and was run by the entertainment impresario, Rodolphe Salis. The Divan Japonais, a café-concert (a combination of a concert hall and a pub) was a haunt of the French painter, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Probably one of the most popular was the Moulin de la Galette. This was originally a windmill, one of the thirty windmills on La Butte de Montmartre, which Madeleine saw as she arrived from Limoges. The windmill owners then added a goguette (a wine shop) which also sold galettes (flat round crusty pastries) and later incorporated a dance hall and restaurant. It was here that Suzanne Valadon reminisced that she had first set eyes on Degas whom she described as:

“…a small round-shouldered man, fragile and sad-eyed, in pepper-and-salt tweeds, his throat swathed in woollen scarves…”

In 1874, at the age of nine, Madeleine took Suzanne to an atelier de couture where she was apprenticed as a seamstress. Suzanne hated the life and made numerous attempts the workplace but unlike the nuns the workhouse owner would beat her when she was dragged back to the factory by her mother. She stayed there for three years but eventually left and took jobs as a waitress in a café, a push-cart vendor of vegetables and working with horses at a livery stable. It was this last job in which one of her jobs was to walk the horses around the streets. People would stop on the street and watch this small young girl with her large horses. Suzanne, ever the entertainer, was not content with just walking the horses but began to perform acrobatic tricks upon the horses to gain more notice and a modicum of applause. In later years, she reckoned that a circus owner witnessed one of her “performances” and offered her a job. She loved this new colourful and exciting life. Although her role at the circus/carnival was a horse riding act, one day she was asked to stand in for a trapeze artist who had been taken ill. She had done some trapeze work and so agreed. Unfortunately the performance went badly and she fell, injuring her back and her circus life came to an end.

…………………… to be continued.

Having been chastised the other day for not acknowledging some of my sources I thought I had better behave myself today and tell you that most of my information came from a book I read (and I am still reading it) on the life of Suzanne Valadon entitled The Valadon Drama, The Life of Suzanne Valadon, written by John Storm in 1923.

Other sites I visited to find some pictures were:

http://lapouyette-unddiedingedeslebens.blogspot.co.uk/

http://youngbohemia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/suzanne-valadon_8445.html

http://www.messynessychic.com

The Blog: It’s about time

http://bjws.blogspot.co.uk

Zinaida Serebriakova – Part 2.

My blog today continues with a look at the life of the Russian painter, Zinaida Serebriakova. At the end of my last entry I told you that she and her family’s life had been turned upside down by the onset of the October Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Lenin, who was the leader of the Bolsheviks, wanted to keep the peasant classes on his side so when he made his attempt to overthrow the provisional Russian government, he ensured the neutrality of the peasants by offering them land, owned by the aristocracy. The Revolution saw the riches, property and lands owned by the aristocratic classes being taken from them by the Bolsheviks and redistributed to the peasants. That October, Serebriakova had been living at her family estate of Neskuchnoye when the Bolshevik forces descended upon her and her family. When it was all over the reserves of Neskuchnoye had been plundered and the family was left without food. Zinaida was left with nothing – no income, no husband, for he had been dragged off by the Bolsheviks and jailed and would die of typhus, which he contracted during incarceration, two years later. Notwithstanding the fact that she was penniless and had no means to earn money, she was responsible for the upbringing of her four children as well as having to care for her widowed mother. Zinaida was forced to give up oil painting in favour of the less expensive techniques of charcoal and pencil sketching

Zinaida eventually managed to get some work at the Kharkov Archaeological Museum, where she made pencil drawings of the exhibits. In December 1920 she and her family went to live with her grandfather who had an apartment in Petrograd. Petrograd had formerly been known as St Petersburg but when World War I broke out in August 1914 it was decided to change the name of the Russian capital from the Germanic St. Petersburg to the more Russian equivalent, Petrograd. It was not until 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, that the city reverted back to the name of St Petersburg. Because of a Bolshevik dictate which stated that all inhabitants of private apartments had to share their living space with other people, Zinaida found herself sharing her lodgings with artists from the Moscow Art Theatre.

In Ballet Dressing Room (Big Ballerinas) by Zinaida Serebriakova (1922)

Serebriakova’s work during this period focused on theatre life. It was around this time that her daughter Tatyana became interested in ballet and her mother managed to get her enrolled at the prestigious ballet school of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, the home of the Russian Ballet, where Zinaida’s uncle, Alexander Benois was the scenic director. Much of Zinaida’s time was absorbed by the theatre and she produced a series of exquisite pastels on the balletic life at the theatre. Many of her works showed young ballerinas in their dressing room preparing to go on stage.

In 1924 Zinaida Serebriakova got the offer of work in Paris and with some financial help from her uncle Alexander Benois, she left St Petersburg and headed to the French capital, leaving behind her four children with her ailing mother. A few years later Zinaida managed to bring her son Alexander and her daughter Katya to live with her in Paris but her son Yevgenyi and her daughter Tatiana had to remain in Russia with their grandmother, and it was not until 1960 that she was able to have Tatiana visit her in Paris.

Zinaida was now one of many Russian exiles living in Paris who could not return to her homeland. She earned a living by painting society portraits. Her children also often featured in her work, and her daughter often posed in the nude. She also painted other female models, reclining in her studio with patterned wraps and decorative drapes. These works were of a very informal nature and often highly erotic. According to her daughter Ekaterina these nude studies were probably the most intimate images of the female body in Russian art. She later wrote:

“…The female nude was mother’s favourite subject. While she was in Russia young peasant women would pose for her. In Paris her friends would come over to her studio, drink a cup of tea, then they would stay and pose for her. They were not the professional models that you might find in Montparnasse and maybe this is the reason why they are so natural and graceful…”

Sleeping Nude (Katya).by Zinaida Serebriakova (1934)

Zinaida completed one of her best known nude studies of her daughter, Ekaterina, in 1934, entitled Sleeping Nude (Katya). It was a veritable masterpiece which is similar in imagery to the sleeping Venuses of the Venetian masters, the nymphs of Boucher and the bathers of Cabanel and Renoir. In this work, Zinaida does not offer us some anonymous heroine from Greek mythological tales but presents us with an innocent young girl, who lies before us, totally relaxed, her cheeks flushed from sleep. It is so natural and it is even more endearing knowing that the model for this painting was her twenty-two year old daughter, Katya who had modelled for her mother for the previous fifteen years.

Sleeping Girl in the Blue (Katyusha on a Blanket)by Zinaida Serebriakova (1923) — Sleeping Girl in the Blue (Katyusha on a Blanket)
by Zinaida Serebriakova (1923)

In 1923, before Zinaida left for Paris she had painted a nude study of the then ten-year old Katya, entitled Sleeping Girl in the Blue (Katyusha on a Blanket), in which we see her young daughter, in all her innocence, sprawled across a blue blanket.

Zinaida’s uncle Alexander Benois, an artist, art critic and co-founder of the art magazine and movement Mir iskusstva (World of Art), commented on the way his niece had portrayed her naked young women. He wrote:

“…[Her nude studies were] not by a generalised sensuality but by something specific, which we recognise from our literature, from our music, from our personal experiences. This is truly the flesh of our flesh. Here is that grace, that comfortable languor, that cosy, domesticated side to Eros – all of which are actually more alluring, more subtle and sometimes more perfidious, more dangerous than what Gauguin found on Tahiti and in search of which blasé Europeans left their pampered life at home and set off in the footsteps of Pierre Loti, across the whole of the white, yellow and black world…”

Zinaida Serebriakova’s nudes were always dignified, self-assured and classically beautiful. She created the most sensual and intimate images of the female body in the Russian art and remained true to the Neo-Romantic tradition and her classical training. At an exhibition of Russian art at the Midi Fair in Brussels in 1928, people noted Serebriakova’s ‘nude’ oeuvre and it was here that she met the industrialist, the Belgian nobleman, Baron de Brouwer. So impressed was he with her work that he became her patron and commissioned her to paint portraits of his family.

Reclining woman (Etude de femme hadija) Marakech by Zinaida Serebriakova (1932)

De Brouwer also financed her painting trip to Morocco where he owned a plantation. Zinaida set off for North Africa on her own and fell in love with the colour and light Morocco afforded her. The baron had wanted her to bring back paintings of the area and its people. He had also said that he had wanted to some nude studies of the Arab women but Zinaiad found this very difficult to achieve. She wrote:

“…He (Brouwer) wants nude paintings of the lovely native women, but it’s a fantasy hardly worth dreaming about – even in their veils which cover everything but their eyes nobody will pose for me. There is no question of a nude…”

However she did return with many paintings of the area and the Arab and Berber women, some of whom she had even managed, with much haggling and offers of financial rewards, to get some to pose in the nude but it was difficult. She wrote of this time:

“…As soon as you sit to draw the women walk away – Arabs don’t wish to be drawn, so they immediately close up their shops or charge up to 10 or 20 francs for tea an hour!…”

De Brouwer was delighted with the works Zinaida brought back from North Africa, so much so, that he commissioned her to paint a series of murals for his villa Manoir du Relais in Pommeroeul near Mons, in Belgium. Zinaida customized the theme of this mural series to that which appealed to her patron. The baron had a love of classical art, which of course was ideal for somebody like Zinaida who had a talent for painting portraits of the naked human form. She set about the commission and decided to paint four separate vertical panels each displaying a standing nude, each with their allegorical attributes which in some way would mirror the leisure activities and talents of de Brouwer.

Jurisprudence by Zinaida Serebriakova (1937-8)

One of the figures would be Jurisprudence, which would represent the baron’s career as a lawyer. A second would be Flora, which would symbolize his passion for gardening, his plantations and his love of flowers. Light, would be another figure which referred to his role as a director of power and gas plants and finally Art which would embody his interest and patronage of the arts. For Zinaida there could only be one possible candidate for the role of model for the four nudes, which would be depicted on the four vertical panels. It was to be her daughter Katya. Her stance in each panel was to be different turning slightly for each depiction. A further two large horizontal panels (145cms x 710cms) were also created and these depicted four maps in cartouches. Zinaida left the painting of these to her son, Alexander, and these were of Flanders, Morocco, India and Patagonia. Next to the maps Zinaida had added half-seated female nudes which were initially intended to represent the four seasons, but she later changed their titles to the countries represented on the maps they adorned. Years later, Zinaida wrote about this commission:

“…The assignment was to paint decorative geographical maps in the 18th-century style, single-tined (my son did the maps); and I painted in the corners of the maps, against that background, the images of the ‘four seasons’ (summer with a sheaf, spring with flowers, etc.), and four figures standing in ‘niches’ on another wall. I painted all this in Paris and, unfortunately, did not see how all this looked on the walls, because the house was not quite ready yet, and the residents were yet to move in … during the war the area was a battlefront, and de Brouwer’s summer house was destroyed…”

Even more pleasing to Zinaida’s was the comments by her artist brother Yevgeni Lanceray, who on seeing photographs of the paintings wrote to her:

“…I love them..You have exactly that which others around you do not – an understanding of composition. The panels are excellent in the simplicity of their execution, completeness of shape, and so monumental and decorative. You completely understand the form of objects. Particularly difficult, I think, is the panel Jurisprudence… It is especially elegant and richly executed. In everything is simplicity and parsimony, so to speak, of decoration and attributes. I envy you your ease, your flexibility, and how broad and accomplished is your representation of the body…”

Nadezhda Tregub of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow wrote about the four nude figures:

“…These murals can be considered entirely cosmopolitan works: they were accomplished on a commission from Belgium, by an artist from Russia who worked in France, and who drew on the major achievements of all European art…”

Sadly the baron and his wife did not have much time to enjoy the murals which were completed in 1937/8 as both died during the Second World War, and it was also thought that their house had also been destroyed. In fact this assumption was incorrect as the house remained standing and even changed ownership a number of times. The murals also remained untouched for over 70 years, but curiously the owners did not recognise the work as being done by Zinaida. They thought they had been executed by an unknown Flemmish artist.

In 1966 a large exhibition of Zinaida Serebryakova’s works was mounted in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev and the critics loved what they saw. In September of the following year Zinaida died in Paris, at the age of eighty-two. She was buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Orthodox cemetery in Paris. The cemetery is a burial place for more than 10,000 Russian emigrants, including the celebrated ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev.