The Bohemian Female Artist Who Broke All the Rules

The art and exploits of the remarkable Suzanne Valadon

The Blue Room (1923) by Suzanne Valadon. Oil on canvas. 90 × 116 cm. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France. Image source Wikimedia Commons

The artist Suzanne Valadon painted The Blue Room in 1923, when she was approaching 60 and moving towards the tail end of a remarkable life.

The portrait shows a voluptuous brunette nonchalantly stretched out among the embroidered setting of a daybed. The interior, painted in shades of ultramarine blue, verges on exuberant. Meanwhile, the model’s striped trousers and pink camisole top suggest something altogether more informal.

Right: La Grande Odalisque (1814) by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Oil on canvas. 162 × 91 cm. The Louvre, Paris, France. Image source Wikimedia Commons. Left: The Blue Room (1923) by Suzanne Valadon. Oil on canvas. 90 × 116 cm. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France. Image source Wikimedia Commons

The Blue Room is a form of odalisque — a popular subject in art featuring an Ottoman chambermaid or concubine as the subject.

To my mind, Valadon’s The Blue Room is a direct riposte to Ingres’ famous La Grande Odalisque — with the luxuriant blue setting, the parted curtain in the background and the almost identical postures of the model, albeit reversed. Everything from the elbow propped up on a pillow to the way the models’ legs cross.

Yet instead of being unclothed and coquettish as tradition would have her, Valadon’s model overturns the convention. She boldly holds an unlit…