Artist Info: "Suzanne Valadon (original name Marie-Clémentine Valadon) was born in 1865 at Bessines-sur-Gartempe, near Limoges, an illegitimate daughter of a French laundress. From age nine on she supported herself by doing odd jobs. One was as a circus acrobat. She did it until she fell off the trapeze when she was sixteen. Looking for a safer occupation, she became an artists' model. posing for such artists as Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Mingling with the Impressionists in the clubs and cabarets of Montmartre, where she caused a sensation with her provocative stunts, Suzanne took numerous lovers. At eighteen she gave birth to an illegitimate son, the future artist Maurice Utrillo. Valadon soon took interest in painting. She observed carefully the techniques of the artists for whom she was posing and began creating her own paintings. Toulouse-Lautrec was the first to see her drawings and to encourage her. Then her work won the admiration and support of Degas (he bought three of her works in 1893), with whom she developed a lasting friendship. Among the artists she knew were van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso and Modigliani." (source: Renoirinc.Com)