Suzanne Valadon: Mistress of Paris March 20, 2006

Suzanne Valadon transformed herself from an artist's model into a successful artist. Her story will be presented in a free illustrated lecture as part of the free lecture series, "Centuries of Art @ Your Library," sponsored by This Century Gallery in partnership with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Williamsburg Regional Library. Paul Mellon Collection Educator Jeffrey W. Allison from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts will introduce Valadon to a modern audience. Valadon rose from the hardscrabble existence of a poor, barely educated street child to a wealthy lifestyle with homes in Paris and the French countryside. She led a lonely childhood in Paris as the daughter of an unmarried and unaffectionate maid, seeking refuge from her bleak circumstances by living in a dream world. While residing in the Montmartre district of Paris, she became an artist's model, working in particular with those painters who frequented the Lapin Agile. She modeled for artists Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, and she had affairs with all of them. In 1894 she was the first woman admitted to the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts. This series is made possible through This Century Art Gallery's partnership program with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA). It has been organized by the Office of Statewide Partnerships of the VMFA and is supported by the Paul Mellon Endowment.

Event submitted by Eventful on behalf of programs.