Suzanne Valadon

The Centre Pompidou presents a solo exhibition devoted to Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938), a bold, iconic artist and one of the most important of her generation. Working outside the dominant movements of her day—Cubism and abstract art were emerging as she passionately championed the need to paint reality—she placed the nude, both female and male, at the heart of her work, depicting bodies without artifice or voyeurism.

Suzanne Valadon has not been the subject of a solo exhibition in Paris since the Musée national d’art moderne devoted one to her in 1967. Conceived by the Centre Pompidou-Metz in 2023, then presented at the Musée d’arts de Nantes and the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona in 2024 under the title “Suzanne Valadon. A World of Her Own,” this tribute to an artist who was unmistakably modern and free from the conventions of her time continues at the Centre Pompidou in 2025, in an expanded version featuring new loans and previously unseen archival material.

The exhibition shines a light on this exceptional figure and highlights her pioneering, often underestimated role in the emergence of modern art. It reveals the remarkable freedom of Suzanne Valadon, who never truly aligned herself with any movement, except perhaps her own. Bringing together nearly two hundred works, the exhibition draws on the wealth of France’s national collections, particularly that of the Centre Pompidou, which holds the largest collection of her work, as well as those of the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée de l’Orangerie.
These are complemented by exceptional loans from the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Fondation de l’Hermitage and major private collections. The exhibition focuses on the artist’s two preferred media: drawing and painting. Given particular prominence in the Centre Pompidou exhibition, her graphic work is explored in depth through a large selection of drawings that have rarely been shown before. This is also an opportunity to explore a period in art that bridges the collections of the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée national d’art moderne.

The exhibition “Suzanne Valadon” traces her unique career, from her beginnings as a favourite model among Montmartre’s artistic circles to the recognition she received early on from fellow artists and critics. A true bridge between two centuries, Suzanne Valadon embraced the energy of turn-of-the-century Paris, with its cafés, musette dances and cabarets, and its many artistic, intellectual and social revolutions. The exhibition highlights the resolutely modern nature of Valadon’s work: she was the first woman to paint a large-scale frontal male nude. This unprecedented exploration of her work reveals both her friendships and artistic relationships with bohemian painters and her undeniable influence on the Parisian art scene, supported by her artist and gallery-owner friends.

The exhibition highlights the breadth, richness and complexity of her work through five thematic sections: Learning by Observing; Family Portraits; “I Paint People to Get to Know Them”; “Nature Lays Down the True Theory”; and The Nude: A Woman’s Perspective. A selection of works by her female contemporaries who shared similar painterly concerns, including Juliette Roche, Georgette Agutte, Jacqueline Marval, Émilie Charmy and Hélène Delasalle, complements the presentation.

The exceptional archive bequeathed to the Centre Pompidou in 1974 by Dr Robert Le Masle, a physician, collector and close friend of the artist, brings together numerous photographs, manuscripts and documents now held at the Bibliothèque Kandinsky. It offers essential insights into Valadon’s rebellious personality and the early recognition of her art.

Following exhibitions devoted to Alice Neel, Georgia O’Keeffe, Dora Maar and Germaine Richier, this solo exhibition forms part of the Centre Pompidou’s ongoing commitment to deepening the study and understanding of women artists’ work and increasing their representation in its collection.

Cover: Suzanne Valadon, “The Blue Room,” 1923 – Public domain – Photo credit: Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Jacqueline Hyde/Dist. GrandPalaisRmn