Suzanne Valadon, Where Have You Been All My Life?

Wes just showed me the image, La Chambre Bleue, by Suzanne Valadon, which will be coming to SAM in October. I don't think I've ever seen it before but it's a very funny send up of the typical odalisque imagery from the French impressionists. I assumed it was a modern work but was stunned--and thrilled--to learn it was painted in 1923! Valadon was a model for Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Puvis de Chavannes. She is the model in Renoir's Dance at Bougival. She learned to paint from these artists and became the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

Her Wikipedia article makes her sound like the most fascinating woman ever. She kept a goat at her studio to "eat up her bad drawings." I love her already.