The Valadon Drama: The Life of Suzanne Valadon by John Storm (GT350)

Published 1959: Hardcover / Very Good Condition / Illustrated throughout

Original black cloth with blue and white titles on the spine and original pictorial dust jacket in protective wraps. 271 very clean and bright pages. Slight shelf wear on dust jacket consistent with age.(GT350)

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Suzanne Valadon, born in 1865 of an erratic mother and an anonymous father, was by the very circumstances of birth destined to live an unconventional life. Her volatile nature, her sensuality found fallow ground in the surging, twisted streets of Montmartre, where her mother, lost in an alcoholic fog, sought oblivion. Her early antics as an outrageous gamine did little to indicate the creative and emotional richness that were to distinguish the later life of this tiny and vivid person. By the time Suzanne was in her teens, she not only was a favorite model of the Montmartre artists, but had found a means of expression in her won passionate and spontaneous painting. As a close friend of Lautrec and Degas, as the mistress of Renoir, Satie and countless other artists, and as the wife of the much younger Utter, the fabric of her life consisted of two dominant threads -- the love of painting and the love of love. Alternating between extreme affluence and poverty, it was not until her son, Maurice Utrillo, was in his teens that she became obsessed by her role as mother. Convinced that her son was the greatest living painter, tormented by his maniacal urge toward self destruction, she attacked the problems of motherhood with the same intensity with which she pursued admiration. Her battle for Maurice's sanity and love, however, was waged too late, and she met her ultimate defeat in a lonely, wistful withdrawal into herself and the past.

A full and dramatic biography of a woman, her son, and the rich if confused climate which nurtured them. Of particular interest to enthusiasts of the impressionist and post impressionist school, John Storm's careful factual recapitulation is easily as dramatic and entertaining as the available fictional treatments of artists' lives. (Kirkus Review)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 October 2014
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An innovative way of discovering this interesting book on Suzanne Valadon originally published in the the 1950s. Though it is one of the authorative accounts of her life drawn from recollections of those who knew her it also include very interesting and revealing cameos on the lives of artists and people around her including Renoir, Degas, Erik Satie, Lautrec, Puvis de Chavannes, Cezanne, Maurice Utrillo, Modigliani, Andre Utter, Braque and Picasso.
It is set against the fast changing art scene in Montmartre between the late 18870s and the 1930s. Suzanne (Marie- Clementine) Valadon was born in 1865 and started life as a 'wild child' of the Paris streets.At the age of 16 she became an artists model sitting for some of the most spectacular paintings of Renoir, Puvis and notable paintings of Lautrec. Amongst others she had a short affair with Erik Satie and is said by some to be the inspirationfor some of his early compositions. Encouraged by Degas she became an artist in her own right. She had numerous affairs and gave birth to Maurice (generally thought to be the son of Miguel Utrillo a Spanish engineer). She 'married' a banker and eventually left him to live with Andre Utter even though she was by then 21 years older than him.
The story of her life is spectacular and is a rags to riches story that compares to any of the more modern versions. It is sex, dr ugs and fame without the rock and roll. It also is one of compassion in the way she tended to her mentally ill, drink and dr ug addicted son encouraging him to be an artist in his own right.
As an artist she has been overshadowed by many of her male contemporaries and the one failing of this book is the lack of good illustrations particularly that stunning 1923 self portait of her lying on a bed, by then nearly sixty,having lost many of her youthful charms but content with herself and brazenly smoking a cigarette. What the book lacks in pictures it makes up for with John Storm's lively and wonderfully descriptive text. It is a must for anyone interested in the art of period, women artists (particularly those who did not start from a priveleged position) and what went on behind the scene. A great read.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Valadon-Drama-Life-Suzanne/dp/