12/12/19 9:29 AM s e i r i u q n i VOLUME XVII, NUMBER 4, 2019 VOLUME XVII, NUMBER 4, art art

art • Volume XVII • Number 4, 2019 www.secacart.org art secacart inquires_xviii_cover_2019.indd 1 Wicked, Hard and Supple An Examination of ’s Nude Drawings of Young Maurice

Courtney Hunt

he artist Suzanne Valadon’s Lautrec and Auguste Renoir. As an of her subjects came from her singular position was the artist’s , Valadon was able neighborhood of , but result of many intersecting to observe the bohemian art scene one model occupied a closeness to circumstances in her life that on the Butte and then to use this the artist that the others did not— allowed her the freedom unique perspective for her own her own son. Tand ability, rare among women artwork, supplementing it with the In this article, I will address the artists, to depict not just the female encouragement and assistance of nude drawings of Maurice Utrillo, nude, but also the male. Born in those who painted her.1 Valadon depicted by his mother from the French countryside in 1865, began as an artist by making late childhood until adolescence. Valadon moved to Paris with her drawings, a practice that is evident in Portraits of Maurice, who was the mother Madeleine when she was the signature bold line present even sole male model in Valadon’s body just a child. In Montmartre, Valadon in her later paintings. Her drawings of work representing children, are became an acrobat and then a model in the 1890s include pictures of intrinsically complicated, and are for such artists as Henri Toulouse- children, often in the nude. Most markedly different from works made

410 • secac Figure 1. Suzanne Valadon, My Utrillo by well-known contemporaries (such into the public eye her own private at the Age of Nine, 1892, black as Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot) life as a single mother, muddying crayon on paper, 9 x 11 13/16 in. who were creating a new intimate the boundaries of the personal and (22.9 x 30 cm). Private Collection. view of motherhood. This difference professional. Using Maurice as a Work in the public domain; retrieved hinges in part on Valadon’s unique model, Valadon found an avenue in from Wikiart.org. relationship to Maurice.2 The which to experiment with the young artist’s interest in the body as a site male nude, a subject otherwise Figure 2. Suzanne Valadon, A Nude of representation reflects a strong off-limits for a woman artist, using Girl Reclining on a Couch, 1894, acknowledgement of the western established artistic conventions to black crayon on yellow tracing paper, canon as well as the importance examine the form of her son’s body 7 5/8 x 8 7/8 in. (19.4 x 22.5 cm). of the nude to the contemporary and his budding sexuality. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Parisian avant-garde. Valadon’s The nude is a well-documented Bequest of Meta and Paul J. Sachs. choice to use her own son’s body as subject for artistic representation. © President and Fellows of Harvard College. source material in her work brings Valadon’s paintings of nude male

art i n q u i r i e s • Vol. XVII, No. 4, 2019 • 411 adults are arguably easily consumed her neighborhood,” Maurice was Significantly, Valadon’s other and analyzed, even if they were not familiar to her, as well as readily drawings of young nude female initially adored, because they fit into available, appearing in many of her models often explore themes of that canonical tradition.3 In contrast, early works.8 Maurice’s position as young sexuality. Both Nude Girl her drawings of her son Maurice, Valadon’s son, however, distracts Sitting (1894) and Young Girl which depict him not simply as a from the relationship between artist Hiding her Forehead, (1913–14) child but also as an individual with and artist’s model. He was not offer stereotypical representations erotic potential, have received less simply another youth chosen out of of childish behavior while hinting at attention.4 Perhaps this is because, convenience, but had a particular sexuality. The figure in Nude Girl as Lauren Jimerson notes in her relationship to the artist, who was his Sitting sits alone on the floor, in a recent article on Valadon’s later male mother. This seemingly simple fact bare room, with her hands beside nudes, “Valadon would not portray makes it all the more unusual that her and her legs stretched out in him past early adolescence, but out of the drawings made by Valadon front. Her hair pulled back into a rather, adopted [Andre] Utter as her of Maurice, at least fourteen depict half-ponytail, she pouts as she stares muse.”5 But even scholars who have her son in the nude between the ages at an unknown point in front of her. addressed the images of Maurice of nine and thirteen.9 Alone in her thoughts, her nudity have tended to downplay any sexual But how to read these works? feels not at all natural. Rather than implication. For instance, Thérèse To begin with, Valadon’s frequent an innocent depiction of a child in Diamand Rosinsky asserts, “The inscriptions on these works (D’après her most natural state, this young nude children, even Maurice, are just mon fils, mon fils, and others) suggest girl appears tense yet resigned to her seen as children, and Valadon does a maternal attachment that expresses lack of apparel. Reading this work not allude to their sexuality.”6 To a sentimental awareness toward her invites a series of contradictions, suggest that Valadon was interested son. But scholars have also pointed where the viewer can understand her in the sexual qualities of her own to certain basic tensions produced by sexual potential through her unease. son might thus seem scandalous— the drawings: tensions that hint at And in A Nude Girl Reclining on especially in the shadow of our a sexual content. In considering My a Couch (fig. 2), also from 1894, modern culture, which has crucified Utrillo at the Age of Nine (fig. 1), for Valadon again imbues her young photographers such as Sally Mann example, Thérèse Diamand Rosinsky model with sexuality in an awkward and Edward Weston for daring to notes “an uneasiness as the viewer and uncomfortable way. The little photograph their children in what becomes a voyeur.”10 Her use of the girl leans back into a sofa, displaying some have deemed pornographic term “voyeur” indicates a potentially her newly budding chest with her compositions.7 Despite this, I argue erotic aspect. And Jean-Pierre Valeix right arm bent so that her head rests that Valadon’s pictures of Maurice writes that Valadon appropriates the on it atop the pillow. Her left arm, indeed explore his youthful sexuality, gaze when she paints the male nude, dangling above her head, allows her pushing the accepted norms for both subjugating the norm of the male to twirl her hair between her fingers. a woman artist depicting a male spectator, and perhaps even creating The model’s gaze is melancholic and nude and a mother depicting her son. a female counterpart.11 Germaine detached, her mouth shaped into Greer, meanwhile, makes note of a distinct frown. The model’s age Mother and Son the unconventional way in which is apparent in her childish frame, Valadon and her son were involved, yet the sinewy lines that make up Born on December 26, 1883, invoking a Freudian context: “From her body lead us to understand her Maurice Utrillo grew up primarily his earliest childhood, when he as sexually available. As she leans under the care of his grandmother lived on the fringe of her hectic life, back into the sofa, the entire front in Montmartre while Valadon Maurice adored his mother, the more of her figure is on display, her gaze continued her carefree lifestyle, because he was the unsuccessful rival unengaged with the viewer/voyeur.13 which included a revolving door of her lovers.”12 Such analyses thus The sexual tension present in of lovers and general participation gesture towards an erotic content, the drawings of Maurice, however, in the Montmartre party scene. while resisting any explicit mention is more precarious, due to the Like many of her female models, of it. implicit inappropriateness of a often “young adolescents from

412 • secac Figure 3. Suzanne Valadon, Utrillo nu assis sur un divan (Utrillo Seated Naked on a Sofa), 1895, black crayon on paper, 7 5/8 x 7 5/8 in. (19.4 x 19.4 cm). Photo: Phillipe Migeat, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France. © CNAC/MNAM/Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

art i n q u i r i e s • Vol. XVII, No. 4, 2019 • 413 mother depicting her child within the tie between Valadon and artistic the parameters of well-defined convention is clear. It is possible and sexual visual language. The artist’s probable that Valadon possessed a choices in how Maurice is depicted degree of art historical awareness further this uncertainty, as there is and knowledge. However, her little difference in how she poses decision to place Maurice in poses him and her female models, child typical for female models may also or adult. Valadon often placed her have been informed by her own son in an odalisque pose, as is the modeling career. Valadon used her case with My Utrillo at the Age of son as a male artist might have Nine (1892), in which the viewer used her, naturalistically depicting encounters Maurice asleep in the the body by manipulating already nude. The odalisque, of course, established motifs, such as the is typically associated with the odalisque, that carried an established display of female nudity and sexual (sexual) visual code. availability, as in Titian’s Venus Still, Valadon’s appropriation of Urbino, or Ingres’ La grande of the genre for a portrait of odalisque. By 1863, however, her son automatically raises Édouard Manet’s Olympia had questions of intention and yields challenged ideas of the voyeur and an uncomfortable sexual innuendo. of social class, even if it continued Astutely and, I think, accurately, to place the female body on display Paula Birnbaum observes that in for consumption by the male gaze. a drawing such as Utrillo nu assis Later nineteenth-century artists sur un divan (fig. 3), “Valadon may pushed the genre even further. As appear to be revealing her own the critic Stuart Preston remarked at anxiety in respect to the sexuality the first showing of Valadon’s work of her son’s youthful male body in the United States, at Peter Deitsch at the age of twelve.”15 Birnbaum Gallery in 1956, goes on to compare the work to Donatello’s bronze David, “whose The Ingres nude, that staple signs of sexual identity are equally of late nineteenth century mixed and confusing.”16 Birnbaum’s academic art, would hardly have assessment captures the nuanced recognized, in the biting topical aspect of Valadon’s drawings of her work of Degas and Lautrec, her son, which do not shy away from own unruly offspring. Even less elements of the sexual but are at in the drawings and prints of times touched by sentimentality. As their admired Suzanne Valadon Birnbaum puts it, “Valadon’s line […] Yet the lineal descent from seems to me tender and delicate, the suave and passionless Ingres representing her maternal love by nudes to those by Valadon, means of eroticized looking.”17 ‘wicked, hard and supple,’ as Of course, other artists at the Degas characterized them, is end of the nineteenth century also straight and direct.14 depicted children alone with their Though Preston was discussing thoughts. For instance, Mary Figure 4. Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Valadon’s larger works—her Cassatt’s Little Girl in a Blue Blue Armchair, 1878, oil on canvas, finished paintings of nude women Armchair (fig. 4) captures a similar 34 1/4 x 51 1/8 in. (87 x 129.9 cm). in particular, rather than her smaller sense of boredom and isolation Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, studies of her pre-adolescent son— in its subject. However, in Utrillo Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.

414 • secac Sitting on a Couch, Maurice appears little girl in a moment of sulking, context. Led in by Valadon’s resolute more aware of his present role as unaware of the artist’s watchful eye. line, the viewer must examine and model; he seems to understand what Importantly, too, Valadon’s drawing decode the expression of the model. he is doing, even if it bores him. is small in scale and offers little Contrastingly, Cassatt’s figure, in By contrast, Cassatt captures the or no environmental or narrative the brilliant blues of the floral print

art i n q u i r i e s • Vol. XVII, No. 4, 2019 • 415 Figure 5, left. Suzanne Valadon, Utter Nu (Utter Nude), 1909, charcoal and graphite on paper, 12 x 6 in. (30.5 x 15.2 cm). Photo: Philippe Migeat, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France. © CNAC/MNAM/Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

Figure 6, right. Suzanne Valadon, Utrillo Enfant Nu (Child Utrillo Nude), 1895, charcoal on paper, 10 1/4 x 5 3/5 in. (26 x 14.2 cm). Photo: Phillipe Migeat, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France. © CNAC/MNAM/Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

demonstrates a keen awareness of child behavior. In Utrillo Sitting on a Couch, by contrast, Maurice’s pose is decidedly less childlike, his bearing less immature. The starkness of his surroundings, which include a simple mantle and solid-colored bedclothes, emphasizes his bare body. Valadon’s drawing hones in on the sinuous frame of her subject, which in turn highlights his pre-adolescence. Even his expression seems deferential. In both the Cassatt painting and the Valadon drawing, the child subjects express a detachment inherent in their solitude. The sexual pose and nudity in Valadon’s work, however, are all the more shocking as the subject depicted is in her own son, while Cassatt’s model is someone else’s child, properly dressed. Though a mother is clearly intimate with her child’s nude body, here Valadon has essentially made a record for public armchair, is completely dressed and a moment of contemplation and view, exposing her child for visual perhaps made uncomfortable by age-appropriate emotion. There consumption. her layers of frock, the focus on her is little question that her pose state of childhood. This is not to say represents a moment of naturally that Cassatt has not too embarked expressed discontent, and there Utter, Utrillo, and Indistinctness on a type of psychological study. exist no overt sexual overtones. A curious element in the drawings Indeed, Cassatt’s work targets the Instead (and although the artist of Maurice is the ambiguity of his psyche of the young girl, caught in never had children), Cassatt’s picture age. It seems that Maurice never

416 • secac ages; he looks much the same at thirteen as at nine. The titles of the works, which sometimes refer to his age, are often the only clue to his stage of maturity. Though Valadon’s evolving representations of Maurice show a lengthened figure, as well as minimal shadowing to indicate pubic hair and genitalia, his bearing and body do not change noticeably. Moreover, studies by Valadon of her lover André Utter from 1908–1911 recall the drawings of Maurice in their minimal compositions and sketch-like quality. With their dark outlines, the figures in these later studies appear soft and sensual, with Utter’s sexuality obviously expressed. Valadon’s use of line and form persistently blurs the division between the physical and emotional. The fact that Maurice and Utter were separated by only three years, and were personal friends, further muddles Valadon’s depictions of each. One can almost imagine that the later nude studies of Utter, so striking in their non-specificity, are actually Maurice grown into adulthood. This revelation only increases the tension present in Valadon’s representation of young Maurice nude. Valadon’s eventual choice of Utter as a lover, whom she quarter turn while Utter appears Maurice’s young body as an object met through Maurice, surely made frontally, but the two drawings, of art, contemplated for its shape her relationship with her son all the shown side by side, could almost rather than for its age. more obscure. The trio, who were appear as a study in aging. Utter’s all artists, would eventually share a facial hair and muscle definition help Influences and Allusions studio together, on the Rue Cortot, to reinforce his adulthood, while Utrillo Enfant Nu recalls the final and Valadon was quite judgmental of the round belly and narrow chest version of Paul Cézanne’s Bather Maurice’s romantic liaisons as well.18 of Maurice’s figure emphasize his with Outstretched Arms, produced Utter Nu (fig. 5) and Utrillo youth. Nevertheless, Utrillo Enfant in 1878.20 This work was at one time Enfant Nu (fig. 6) are strikingly Nu is one of the few from its period in the collection of Degas, increasing similar, with both figures shown in which Valadon left Maurice’s the likelihood that Valadon may nude and in contrapposto with eyes genitals completely exposed, rather have seen it in person.21 One can cast downward. In both drawings, than alluding to them with shadow clearly see the influence of Cézanne the legs are shoulder width apart and or line.19 Presented upon a blank in Valadon’s later paintings; the cut off at the ankles. The drawing background, devoid of context, flattened planes of color, bold of Maurice shows him in a three- the picture forces the viewer to see contoured lines, and even, to some

art i n q u i r i e s • Vol. XVII, No. 4, 2019 • 417 degree, the palette of blue, gold, and arms. He windmills his arms into a and the truncated pictorial space that green all recur. However, Valadon’s diagonal line, stretching from the left forces the figure into the extreme earlier drawings of Maurice also top corner of the canvas to the mid- foreground of the composition. imply that she may already have right quadrant. Reff mentions the art Similarly, in Utrillo Enfant Nu, been interested in Cézanne, whose historical lineage of this pose, noting Valadon positions Maurice in a bather stirs up enigmatic feelings. that Cézanne at one time copied the standing position, eyes downcast, As Theodore Reff put it, in his “Hellenistic Dancing Satyr” while with his arms coming up from his essay on the work: “The bent legs drawing at the Louvre (though he sides in an indication of motion. imply a forward motion that the quickly adds that this resemblance Rather than creating a diagonal, rigidly frontal upper body denies; “although striking in all respects, is however, they make an upside down the outstretched arms seem to reach only superficial and explains nothing V shape. Though the difference and reject simultaneously; and the in his bather”).23 But the bather’s in medium produces a drastically bowed head is dark and withdrawn, solitary form focuses in on itself, different finished effect, both Bather its eyes not focused on the barren introspective and somewhat stunted. with Outstretched Arms and landscape.”22 The figure is not Despite the indication of movement Utrillo Enfant Nu offer the viewer nude, but almost, wearing only a in the slight bend of his figure’s a glimpse of the young male body simple pair of white underpants; knee, as well as the arm in the air, in its immaturity and focus on the the muscles are quite defined and Cézanne’s work retains a static contours of the body rather than a somewhat bulbous, especially in the quality due to stylized chiaroscuro desire to contextualize the figures in

418 • secac Figure 7, left. Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo jouant avec un lance-pierres (Maurice Utrillo Playing with a Slingshot), 1895, black crayon on paper, 7 1/2 x 13 in. (19.1 x 33 cm). Private Collection. Work in the public domain; retrieved from Wikiart.org.

Figure 8, below. , The Tub, 1886, pastel on card, 23 1/2 x 32 3/4 in. (56.7 x 83.2 cm). Photo: Hervé Lewandowski, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

a specific narrative. In some ways a detail that lends the subject with a Slingshot, in turn, such an still sensual, Valadon’s drawing of personal weight, projecting a sense association and the innocent explicit Maurice is a study of the adolescent of closeness and emotional intimacy narrative undermine any possibility male form, confined to the blank that many of her other depictions of impropriety in showing the artist’s background of a sheet of paper. of Maurice lack. The way in which nude son. Unlike its art historical Maurice Utrillo Playing with a Maurice turns from the viewer’s gaze sources, moreover, Valadon’s drawing Slingshot (fig. 7) may be the most provides an invitation into the scene, conceals the genitalia. This is all genuinely candid of Valadon’s while Valadon uses a heavy and typical of Valadon’s work, which drawings of Maurice. His nude rear uninterrupted contour to model the clearly references established genre end sits tentatively on the implied outer lines of his body. types, but diverges from tradition. ground, and his body is completely The drawing also gently recalls the In this particular work, though, folded over, as he readies to launch story of David and Goliath. Well- the artist further complicates its his toy weapon. Intent on his task, known variations on the tale, such reading by marrying male archetypes with his arms stretched out in front as Donatello’s homoerotic sculpture of heroism with a composition of him and his hair tousled, Maurice or Michelangelo’s gargantuan seemingly quoting Edgar Degas’ The looks the part of a mischievous little masterpiece, emphasize the heroic Tub (fig. 8), a representation of the boy. Valadon took extra care in in a way that recalls classical female form. Specifically, Valadon shading her subject’s hair, including tradition and excuses the subject’s echoes Degas’ angles of the body in a cowlick at the crown of his head: nudity. In Maurice Utrillo Playing her portrayal of the small boy,

art i n q u i r i e s • Vol. XVII, No. 4, 2019 • 419 deforming his skinny arm in a twitch a young boy, Degas’ pastel depicts by the side of the model’s breast, of a line. Readily apparent are the a woman bathing indoors, and the cloaked a bit in the shadow of her jutting shoulder blades and line of vantage point is markedly different, own body, but nonetheless on Maurice’s back; yet, as the eye moves positioned above the figure. Given display. Carol Armstrong to the buttocks, becomes the documented friendship between summarizes and dissects early Degas irregular and misshapen. Maurice’s Degas and Valadon, as well as her critic Joris-Karl Huysmans’ arguments feet keep him on the ground but noted interest in contemporary about Degas’ series of Bathers, without a horizon line, the viewer must art, Valadon undoubtedly knew of noting that Huysmans states that the depend largely on shadow to sense Degas’ Bathers series, including The artist performed a kind of iconoclastic where the ground begins. The result is Tub. The solitary figures in both action by placing his models in such one of tentative balance, heightened Valadon’s and Degas’ works crouch unforgiving and “vulnerable”

Figure 9. Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo Nu Allongé, 1896, black crayon on paper, 4 1/8 x 9 7/16 in. (10.5 x 24 cm). Private Collection. Work in the public domain; retrieved from Wikiart.org.

by Maurice readying his slingshot, close to the floor. The eye follows positions, deconstructing the symbolic left foot cocked to one side. General the elegant and graceful line down function of the female nude. To feelings of gracelessness do not the model’s back in Degas’ work, Huysmans, and indeed to Armstrong, necessarily mitigate feelings of beginning with her raised elbow, this iconoclasm serves as proof of eroticism or sexual innuendo, as which lifts as she washes herself. The Degas’ misogyny. Going still further, evidenced by pictures such as Manet’s line continues, essentially unbroken, Armstrong asserts that “The nudes Olympia or Matisse’s Blue Nude. outlining the buttocks and eventually are, according to Huysmans, But Maurice Utrillo Playing with a connecting to the stabilizing arm, enactments of a process of disintegra- Slingshot deflects a sexual reading rooting her to the ground. tion interior to representation because of its thoroughly childlike For Wendy Lesser, The Tub “invites itself.”25 Involved in reflexive essence. In large part, this is our lingering, caressing look: we activities such as bathing or toweling because Valadon has kept the point roam among the light and shadows dry, the 1886 nudes by Degas refer of view low, where we as the viewer of the upper back, then slip gently only to themselves, rather than a are occupying the same vantage down her left side to the shadowy larger allegorical setting. point as the subject—we are party to breast, then down the thigh to circle And that is a point repeated by the action. the hip and come back up the Lesser, who sees Armstrong’s analysis Degas’ work also shows the curved rounded spine.”24 The scene retains of the 1886 series as too concerned body of a figure with ambiguous a calm beauty, along with an element with Degas’ misogyny. Lesser writes: ungainliness. However, instead of of titillation, emphasized in particular

420 • secac Armstrong accurately perceives with the act of playing and the Utrillo, in 1926. Clearly, he admired that there is no room for shift in the point of view, effectively both Valadon’s and Maurice’s work an actual viewer where the eliminates the presence of a voyeur. and was likely a close family friend.29 painting posits one: Degas, Instead, the viewer can understand Still, it is significant that Valadon in looking down on the the picture in terms of its potential would be willing to give such a woman who crouches in her narrative quality. sexualized picture of her son to one bath and squeezes a sponge A final drawing, Maurice Utrillo outside of the actual family, in an act over her shoulders, gives us Nu Allongé (fig. 9), is signed as a that again reinforces the idea that (in Armstrong’s words) ‘an gift to “A. Tabarant” and shows a she viewed young Maurice largely as impossible, awkward, too- beautifully elongated and seemingly subject for her art, despite the work’s close view which speaks so candid portrait of a sleeping Maurice sentimental title. much to exclusion that it that seems to anticipate Pierre Each drawing of Maurice in the allows no place for the viewer Bonnard’s Woman Dozing on a nude blurs the line between the to stand.’ She sees, yet she Bed of 1899.27 Maurice’s figure, public persona of the artist Valadon, doesn’t believe. She insists that seen from above, echoes the point whose interest in representing the the posited viewer must be of view in The Tub more than that body shows great attention to the merely concealed—dangerously in Maurice Utrillo Playing with a modern and classical canon of invisible—rather than entirely Slingshot. Stretched out across the art, and the private life of a single absent from the scene.26 picture plane, Maurice’s leg makes mother. Valadon revisited the male a figure four as it bends at the knee. nude as a subject after 1908, when But even Lesser sees the pastels as His right arm hangs limply from his she began to work on large-scale part of a larger focus on gestures body, while his left falls gently at paintings that include tter in idyllic and bodies, as in Degas’ ballet his side, partially obscured from the group compositions and alone. pictures. Thus, whether they are viewer’s line of sight by the top of the Valadon continued in her career taken as misogynistic, iconoclastic boy’s chest—with the figure’s penis to make studies, drawings, and representations of the female body implied by a quick curved line at etchings, and these works offer a or as a simple proof of the artist’s the intersection of his legs. Valadon more intimate view of her subjects appreciation for beauty, the fact that thus provides the viewer unfettered than do the larger, “finished” Degas’ 1886 nudes refer foremost to access to the body of her son, who paintings. Even in their simplicity, themselves remains perhaps the most sleeps on a largely undefined surface. however, the early drawings of integral element in attempting to Sprawled out, Maurice remains Maurice show an attachment to read them formally. unaware of his audience, who peek artistic tradition, both of the female In Maurice Utrillo Playing with in from above, recalling the vantage body and of the classical male a Slingshot, in turn, Valadon takes point of The Tub. But the inscription hero, as well as an alternative to formal considerations such as pose, at the bottom right, “D’après mons conventional maternal attachment, line, and shading from The Tub, fils,” disrupts the voyeuristic quality venturing to include an examination but gives her subject a prop, and of the work, bringing attention to of youthful sexuality. Thus, to in so doing refers to the realm of the viewer that this is the artist’s deny a reading of sexuality in the the exterior. In Valadon’s picture, son. It also tells us that the drawing pictures of young Maurice is to Maurice’s focus is not on himself was a personal gift to a specific ignore the works themselves, which but on an outside force, one that person in Valadon’s Montmartre focus on the feminized form of a we as viewers are unable to see, circle and thus not intended for young boy’s undeveloped form, and towards which his kinetic energy is a public viewership. In fact, the uncomfortably position him directly poised. This simple fact, along with work was not shown publicly until within the male (and female) gaze. the reference to the story of David 1962, at the Paul Pétridès Gallery and Goliath, gives the viewer a in Paris.28 Adolphe Tabarant, likely reason to look as well as the ability the recipient of this work, was a to understand, on at least a basic Parisian art critic who wrote at least level, the action within the picture. one article on Valadon in 1921 and The tie to the biblical story, along a monograph on Maurice, entitled

art i n q u i r i e s • Vol. XVII, No. 4, 2019 • 421 Endnotes 5. Jimerson, “Defying Gender,” 4. 14. Stuart Preston, “Gallery Variety: 6. Ibid. Valadon’s Graphic Work—Three Americans, 1. Valadon enjoyed success in her own time 7. Anne Higonnet explains how Weston’s Virtuoso Figures, Triple Showing,” The New as an artist, first at the 1894 Salon de la photographs of his son Neil were at first York Times, April 29, 1956. Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and later accepted and revered for their departure 15. Birnbaum, “Femmes artistes (and regularly) at the Salon d’Automne and from portraiture, depersonalizing the figure modernes,” 444. Salon des Indépendants, as well as at galleries by cutting off the head and limbs and 16. Ibid., 444–45. such as Galerie and Galerie turning the image into a modernist form 17. Ibid., 445. Bernheim-Jeune; see Paula J. Birnbaum, of photographic abstraction. Higonnet 18. Valadon, Utrillo, & Utter in the Rue “Femmes artistes modernes: Women, art, notes that beginning with Sherrie Levine’s Cortot Studio: 1912–1926 (Paris: Somogy and modern identity in interwar France” appropriation of the photographs, and editions d’art, 2015). (Ph.D. dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, Douglas Crimp’s analysis of the topic, 19. Valadon shied away from depicting 1996), 114. Edgar Degas was among the Weston’s photographs began to be looked male genitalia in detail in her pictures of artists who bought works by her, and the at in a more sinister and conflicted light. the male nude. However, she did include it two become close friends. See Thérèse For more on the shift from accepting in a few instances. Three of her drawings Diamand Rosinsky, Suzanne Valadon (New representations of children in modernist from 1894, including one of Maurice York: Universe Publishing, 1994), 11. photographs to criticizing them for alone using his foot to play with a bowl 2. Lauren Jimerson notes how Valadon’s exploitation, see Anne Higonnet, “Private and two of Maurice being tended to by career as a model influenced her painted Pictures, Public Dangers” in Pictures of his grandmother, include depictions of compositions, noting “After having learned Innocence: The History and Crisis of Ideal the child’s penis. Interestingly, it is when how to adeptly position her own body as Childhood (London: Thames & Hudson, she begins drawing him by himself in the a model, Valadon would apply these same Ltd., 1998), 133–58. nude that she excludes that detail or simply skills as an artist, displaying Utter from 8. Rosinsky. Suzanne Valadon, 35. alludes to it with a quick line. Paul Petrides, the most complimentary angles.” Lauren 9. Ibid., 32. L’Œuvre complet de Suzanne Valadon Jimerson, “Defying Gender: Suzanne 10. Ibid. (Paris: Compagnie française des arts Valadon and the Male Nude,” Woman’s 11. Jean-Pierre Valeix, “Suzanne Valadon graphiques, 1971). Art Journal 40, no. 1 (2019), 5. I believe ou le corps rebouté,” in Valadon/Utrillo: 20. This work is in a private collection. that Valadon’s entire oeuvre, including her Au tournant du siècle à Montmartre—de Aruna D’Souza, Cézanne’s Bathers: drawings of Maurice, reflects her career as l’Impressionisme à l’École de Paris (Paris: Biography and the Erotics of Paint an artist’s model. Pinacothèque de Paris, 2009), 31. (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania 3. Jimerson notes that Le lancement du 12. Germaine Greer. The Obstacle Race State University Press, 2008), 130, n. 5. filet (Casting of the Net) “received very (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 21. Ibid. little attention by critics.” But in one case 1979), 66. Greer goes on to note, “The 22. Theodore Reff, “Cézanne’s Bather with the poet Arthur Cravan wrote, “Suzanne result was deep sexual disturbance, such Outstretched Arms,” Gazette des Beaux- Valadon knows well the little recipes, but that the sight of a pregnant woman Arts (1962), 173. reduced it’s not made to be simple, old would bring on terrible seizures, alcoholic 23. Ibid., 174. slut!” Jimerson takes this to mean that crises and subsequent dependence upon 24. Wendy Lesser, His Other Half: the heterosexual female desire was well his mother for everything.” While the Men Looking at Women Through Art on display and able to be understood by scholarship on Valadon does clearly (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, the viewing public in Valadon’s paintings document the close-knit relationship Utrillo 1991), 73. of male nudes. But the atrocious remark would have with his mother in adulthood, 25. Carol Armstrong, Odd Man Out: and the silence from most critics imply there is no citation or scientific basis for Readings of the Work and Reputation of that viewers actually had a difficult time the statement that Utrillo’s seizures were Edgar Degas (Chicago: The University of digesting what they saw. See Jimerson, actually caused by the sight of pregnant Chicago Press, 1991), 192. “Defying Gender,” 6. women. 26. Lesser, His Other Half, 57. 4. Significant publications on Valadon’s 13. A strong argument for Valadon’s 27. On the friendship between Tabarant work include: Rosemary Betterton, “How appropriation and subjugation of the gaze and Valadon, Rosinsky writes, “In 1924, Do Women Look? The Female Nude in can be found in Rosemary Betterton, “How Valadon signed a contract with the the Work of Suzanne Valadon,” Feminist Do Women Look? The Female Nude in Bernheim-Jeune Gallery. To celebrate the Review 19, no. 1 (1985), 3–24; Patricia the Work of Suzanne Valadon,” Feminist event, the art critic Tabarant gave a banquet Mathews, “Returning the Gaze: Diverse Review 19 (1985), 3–24. Betterton argues in her honor at the lavish Maison Rose. Representations of the Nude in the Art of that Valadon’s tendency later in her career, It was attended by several art critics and Suzanne Valadon,” The Art Bulletin 73, when she is producing large-scale painted artists.” See Suzanne Valadon, 21. no. 3 (1991), 415–430; Gill Perry, Women female nudes regularly, to have her models 28. Paul Petrides, L’Œuvre complet de Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde: engaged in activity or otherwise utilizing Suzanne Valadon (Paris: Compagnie Modernism and Feminine Art, 1900 to artistic convention but altering it in some française des arts graphiques, 1971), 113. the Late 1920s (Manchester: Manchester way (The Blue Room, 1923, is a good 29. Jeanine Warnod, Suzanne Valadon University Press, 1995); and Rosinsky, example of this), reclaims the gaze from the (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1981), Suzanne Valadon. solely male point of view. 93–94.

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