Suzanne Valadon

The Centre Pompidou invites you from 15 January to 26 May 2025, to discover the exceptional exhibition dedicated to Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938), a bold and emblematic artist at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The life of a daring artist

The exhibition sheds light on an exceptional woman and artist, highlighting her often underestimated role as a precursor in the emergence of artistic modernity. It reveals the great freedom of Suzanne Valadon, who never really adhered to any particular movement, except perhaps her own, and chose to paint reality and represent the body without artifice or voyeurism. She was the first woman to paint a large-format frontal male nude.

An artist to rediscover

The exhibition of nearly 200 works, drawings and paintings - the artist's two favourite media -, divided into five thematic sections, traces her singular career from her beginnings as the favourite Montmartre model to her early recognition as an artist by her peers and critics.

This unprecedented insight into her work reveals both her friendly and artistic relationships with the bohemian painters and her undeniable influence on the Parisian art scene thanks to the active support of her artist and gallery-owning friends.

The exhibition is based on a rich selection of national collections, in particular that of the Centre Pompidou, the most important, but also that of the Musée d'Orsay and the Orangerie. Exceptional loans from the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Hermitage Foundation, as well as major private collections, complete the exhibition.

Her work had not been shown in France for nearly sixty years. This exhibition offers a complete re-reading of her work and her artistic approach.

Experience other cultural emotions in the Paris Region.