Deux Baigneuses. Femmes s'Essuyant. Women Washing by Suzanne Valadon, 1867-1938

Suzanne Valadon, 1867-1938
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Deux Baigneuses. Femmes s'Essuyant. Women Washing

Original softground etching in black-brown ink. 1896. Signed in pencil. Also signed in the plate. From the edition of 100 impressions. Printed at the studio of Auguste Clot, Paris 1896. Commissoned by Ambroise Vollard 1896, but not issued. Rare.
Ref: Johnson - Vollard Editeur no 144

Extremely fine tonal impression with a wiped plate-tone. On pale cream laid Arches paper. Generally excellent condition; repaired one 3/4 inch tear in the bottom sheet edge 2 1/2 ins clear of the plate, otherwise excellent. Full margins. Sheet: 16 7/8 x 22 3/8ins. Plate: 11 3/8 x 12 1/2 ins ( 288x317mm)

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Femmes s'Essuyant is one of the very rare prints by Valadon which were signed and editioned at the period at which she drew it in the 1890's. Almost all the prints by her which are now to be seen are impressions of plates reprinted in the 1930's and signed just before her death.

Suzanne Valadon was one of the most interesting and diverse figures of late Impressionism. She began her life as a circus performer but after falling from a trapeze took work as an artist's model. Through modelling she also began to draw herself, although entirely taught by observation. She met Renoir, with whom she had an affair, Toulouse Lautrec for whom she became a kind of hostess when he wanted to entertain, and then most importantly Degas. Degas admired her drawing, encouraging and teaching her, and it was through him that she became interested in making prints. It was also through Degas that she met Vollard who gave her a first exhibition of her prints in 1895.

Her main subjects were of models dressing or washing, and she had a special way of giving her subjects a hard vital realism, the kind of 'modern realism' Degas admired. Her sense of contour and shape also reflect her admiration of Gauguin (whose work she also came to know through Degas). Her small body of work has a vibrancy and strength which is very special and totally personal.