Adam and Eve, Suzanne Valadon

Valadon was in a romantic relationship with the painter André Utter, who was 24 years younger, when she created this painting, in a time of great productive activity. She depicts herself and Utter as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden on this painting. The original canvas showed Utter completely nude, but the artist decided to add the leaves covering his genitals to allow her work to be exhibited at the Salon in 1920.

This is the first painting that Valadon created depicting an outdoors scene. It is also believed to have been the first painting by a female artist portraying a nude couple that was exhibited publicly. The couple was the painter herself, appearing younger than she was at the time, with her male lover. In the painting Eve reaches happily for the apple, while she is entwined with Adam. There is no serpent in the painting. It can be interpreted as a metaphor for Valadon’s relationship with a younger man, as if it was the forbidden fruit.

According to biographer Catherine Hewitt: “The couple, Suzanne confessed, were caught in a timeless paradise and they were both responsible for their sin”.

Valadon spent nearly 40 years of her life as an artist. The subjects of her drawings and paintings, such as Joy of Life (1911), included mostly female nudes, portraits of women, still lifes, and landscapes. She never attended the academy and was never confined within a tradition.

She was a model for many renowned artists. Among them, Valadon appeared in such paintings as Dance at Bougival (1883) and Dance in the City by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1883), and Suzanne Valadon (1885) by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

  

All prints are made using archival art stocks and UV pigment inks to give up to 200 years life. Prints are sold unframed and unmounted.