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Lot Essay
Painted in 1923 – contemporaneous to her acclaimed La chambre bleue, now in the collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris – Deux nus or le bain is a striking depiction of the human form. Set within a bucolic landscape, the two nude women are in the process of bathing. To the left, the darker haired of the pair is shown seated atop an expanse of blue cloth, the fabric pooling into folds beneath her body. Her companion on the right stands with her back to the viewer as she dries herself with a long piece of pink fabric. Their voluptuous bodies have been lavishly painted in thick, impasto paint, evincing a care and attention on the part of the artist.
After a brief sting performing in the circus, Valadon began her artistic career as a model, working for artists such as Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre-Auguste Renoir – she can be seen in many of his compositions including the famed La danse à Bougival – and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Her dedication to her job was unmatched and she quickly became the favoured model amongst the artists of Montmartre where she was living. But as Valadon sat in various studios, she too received an education: the scholar June Rose has described her time working with Toulouse-Lautrec as an ‘apprenticeship’ of sorts as she would observe him at the easel (Suzanne Valadon: The Mistress of Montmarte, New York, 1999, p. 78). In pursuit of her own career, she began to sketch works at the Musée du Louvre and the Musée Luxembourg before ultimately deciding to take up painting.
The subject matter of Deux nus, that of the female nude, has a long art historical precedent but was deemed unsuitable for female artists. While life drawing classes were essential to the French academic art system, women were excluded from attending as the presence of the nude models was considered inappropriate and even dangerous. Those who were able to receive training at private academies – the Ecole des Beaux-Arts only opened to women in 1897 – were steered towards more modest subject matters. Valadon’s sensual rendering of the human form, as seen in the present work, would have been viewed as radical by many of her contemporaries. Yet for the artist, it was clear that ‘the naked female body’ was ‘the only subject to paint if she wanted to be taken seriously’ (M. Lucy, ‘Painting from Both Sides of the Easel: Suzanne Valadon and the Female Nude,’ in Suzanne Valadon: Model, Painter, Rebel, exh. cat., The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, 2022, p. 26).
By the time the present work was painted, Valadon was an established figure within the Parisian art world, having overcome many of the barriers that faced women artists. André Lhote, the painter and art critic, admired her clarity of vision, noting, ‘she stopped at nothing for the work to be done well: she redoubled her brushstrokes to achieve a blending of colours that would have fit well in the Impressionist tradition’ (‘Suzanne Valadon,’ in La nouvelle revue française: Revue mensuelle de littérature et de critique, May 1938, pp. 870 – 871). She regularly exhibited at the Salon des Indépendents as well as the Salon d’Automne, and in 1922, the critic Robert Rey wrote the first book about Valadon’s oeuvre: ‘What strikes one in any work by Valadon…in portraits inspired by the coarsest of faces…in the most rustic of her still lifes and in the least measured of her landscapes is the artist’s superb style…that inexplicable quality which pervades a work of art and gives the faintest touch of the true master an aspect of eternity’ (quoted in op. cit., 1999, p. 186).
Valadon’s experience modelling for other artists contributed to her remarkably modern depictions of her subjects. While her male counterparts may have depicted an eroticised female form, in her paintings, Valadon endeavoured to capture not only a sitter’s appearance, but also her psychology. She spoke about painting her models as a means of ‘[getting] to know them’ (quoted in E. Herriot, ‘Suzanne Valadon,’ in Exposition Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo, André Utter, Georges Salendre, exh. cat., Galerie Moos, Geneva, 1932, n.p.). Thérèse Diamand Rosinsky commented that Valadon’s concern ‘was not about a theoretical allegiance to some given movement but a desire to capture the life she saw around her,’ and it is her zealous pursuit of this that can be seen in her lifelike nudes (Suzanne Valadon, New York, 1994, p. 12). Her empathetic treatment gave image to the reality of her sitters’ lives, conveying a genuine vitality and sense of presence. In works such as Deux nus, her celebration of the human body is undeniable, an approach which influenced a subsequent generation of artists including Alice Neel and Paula Rego.
After a brief sting performing in the circus, Valadon began her artistic career as a model, working for artists such as Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre-Auguste Renoir – she can be seen in many of his compositions including the famed La danse à Bougival – and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Her dedication to her job was unmatched and she quickly became the favoured model amongst the artists of Montmartre where she was living. But as Valadon sat in various studios, she too received an education: the scholar June Rose has described her time working with Toulouse-Lautrec as an ‘apprenticeship’ of sorts as she would observe him at the easel (Suzanne Valadon: The Mistress of Montmarte, New York, 1999, p. 78). In pursuit of her own career, she began to sketch works at the Musée du Louvre and the Musée Luxembourg before ultimately deciding to take up painting.
The subject matter of Deux nus, that of the female nude, has a long art historical precedent but was deemed unsuitable for female artists. While life drawing classes were essential to the French academic art system, women were excluded from attending as the presence of the nude models was considered inappropriate and even dangerous. Those who were able to receive training at private academies – the Ecole des Beaux-Arts only opened to women in 1897 – were steered towards more modest subject matters. Valadon’s sensual rendering of the human form, as seen in the present work, would have been viewed as radical by many of her contemporaries. Yet for the artist, it was clear that ‘the naked female body’ was ‘the only subject to paint if she wanted to be taken seriously’ (M. Lucy, ‘Painting from Both Sides of the Easel: Suzanne Valadon and the Female Nude,’ in Suzanne Valadon: Model, Painter, Rebel, exh. cat., The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, 2022, p. 26).
By the time the present work was painted, Valadon was an established figure within the Parisian art world, having overcome many of the barriers that faced women artists. André Lhote, the painter and art critic, admired her clarity of vision, noting, ‘she stopped at nothing for the work to be done well: she redoubled her brushstrokes to achieve a blending of colours that would have fit well in the Impressionist tradition’ (‘Suzanne Valadon,’ in La nouvelle revue française: Revue mensuelle de littérature et de critique, May 1938, pp. 870 – 871). She regularly exhibited at the Salon des Indépendents as well as the Salon d’Automne, and in 1922, the critic Robert Rey wrote the first book about Valadon’s oeuvre: ‘What strikes one in any work by Valadon…in portraits inspired by the coarsest of faces…in the most rustic of her still lifes and in the least measured of her landscapes is the artist’s superb style…that inexplicable quality which pervades a work of art and gives the faintest touch of the true master an aspect of eternity’ (quoted in op. cit., 1999, p. 186).
Valadon’s experience modelling for other artists contributed to her remarkably modern depictions of her subjects. While her male counterparts may have depicted an eroticised female form, in her paintings, Valadon endeavoured to capture not only a sitter’s appearance, but also her psychology. She spoke about painting her models as a means of ‘[getting] to know them’ (quoted in E. Herriot, ‘Suzanne Valadon,’ in Exposition Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo, André Utter, Georges Salendre, exh. cat., Galerie Moos, Geneva, 1932, n.p.). Thérèse Diamand Rosinsky commented that Valadon’s concern ‘was not about a theoretical allegiance to some given movement but a desire to capture the life she saw around her,’ and it is her zealous pursuit of this that can be seen in her lifelike nudes (Suzanne Valadon, New York, 1994, p. 12). Her empathetic treatment gave image to the reality of her sitters’ lives, conveying a genuine vitality and sense of presence. In works such as Deux nus, her celebration of the human body is undeniable, an approach which influenced a subsequent generation of artists including Alice Neel and Paula Rego.