Suzanne Valadon

French model and artist, brilliant and erratic, who posed for Renoir and Toulouse-Latrec, but eventually became an accomplished artist in her own right. In 1881, she began to model as well. Before her success, she lived the careless life of a street person, working from age nine as a seamstress, waitress, pushcart vendor and a groom in a livery stable.

Nervous and sensual with a wide mouth and ivory skin she chose her own patrons and lovers. In the spring of 1883 she was living with 57-year-old de Chavannes in Paris, the same place that she met Miguel Utrillo, a young engineering student. On 26 December 1883, she bore a frail son named Maurice, the son of an untalented artist named Boissy, who took the surname of Utrillo when the Spanish journalist adopted him at age eight.

In 1896, Valadon married Paul Mouris, a wealthy lawyer, who arranged for Maurice to attend the College Rollin. In 1902, Valadon started Maurice at drawing and painting under her instruction. Her second husband, the painter Andre Utter, assisted Maurice at the time he was in and out of sanitariums due to extreme alcoholism.

Valadon died at 11 a.m. on 7 April 1938 in Paris, France