From a childhood marked by poverty to a career as a popular artist’s model, French artist Suzanne Valadon defied the odds to become a successful painter, confounding societal expectations to assert her independence. The first self-taught woman to exhibit at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, she challenged behavioral codes with her art and lifestyle, breaking new ground with her unapologetic portraits and nudes.

Confrontational and witty, her works tackle themes that remain provocative today: female desire, the conflicts of marriage and motherhood, and a woman’s experience of her own physicality.

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