Renoir's Dancer

by Catherine Hewitt

  Maurice was accustomed to being told what to do, but Utter strongly opposed this manner of payment. Still, the gallery wielded power. Their terms had to be accepted. For Suzanne, uprooting herself from the Rue Cortot would be the most seismic shift she had yet endured. From that point, her production dwindled.

  Fortunately, she still had a substantial body of work from which to draw exhibition pieces. The spring of 1925 brought the Salon des Indépendants, and there was a sale of her work at the Hôtel Drouot in March. But when the Exposition internationale des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes opened in April and all the world’s eyes turned to Paris, Suzanne received a body blow: Louis Vauxcelles, the organiser of the corollary exhibition Cinquante ans de peinture française at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (now, significantly, located in the Louvre’s Pavillon de Marsan), had systematically excluded Suzanne from the show.16

  Few exhibitions heralded the blurring of art and fashion characteristic of les Années Folles as flagrantly as this world fair. It had been nearly fifteen years in the planning. The exposition was designed to showcase the decorative arts and trumpet Paris’s supremacy in the fields of art and design. Fifteen thousand exhibitors established themselves across 57 acres in central Paris and around the Grand Palais. Though at least twenty countries were invited to join, two-thirds of the exhibition space was dominated by France; Germany received its invitation too late to organise an exhibit. With pavilions housing the capital’s key manufacturers and department stores, including Galeries Lafayette and Le Bon Marché, the show was an unashamed celebration of consumerism, which announced Paris as an arbiter of taste and a centre for shopping. Exhibits lined the banks of the Seine, the entertainments included cafés, ballets, fashion shows and fireworks, while richly decorated barges enticed visitors to dance and dine on the river. With the professed criteria for entry being modernity, the exhibition was the big international event of the moment. Vauxcelles refusing Suzanne entry to the Louvre was as symbolic as it was offensive.17

  Critics pounced on Vauxcelles’s self-appointed role as curator of the history of French art. ‘Of course an exhibition must have its limits,’ Gustave Khan conceded, ‘but why limit itself based on received ideas? […] This is an exhibition which reflects the taste of the contemporary amateur. It is full of holes.’18

  ‘They failed to invite Suzanne Valadon,’ Berthe Weill exclaimed when she learned of the omission. ‘I think she counts!’ To which Vauxcelles had a simple retort: ‘I do not like Valadon’s painting.’19

  If women were now grudgingly accepted in the art world, it was still felt that the form their work should take needed to meet strict criteria. The palette should be muted, the handling delicate and any feminine form depicted slim and fragile in appearance. Marie Laurencin, the tall, svelte and distinguished former muse of the late Guillaume Apollinaire with doe-like, almond-shaped eyes, had wisely calculated what the public craved from a woman artist. Her use of pastel pinks, greys and blues, and breathy female forms won favour with the critics. Intelligent and ambitious, it made no difference to her that her late lover’s companions found her manner affected. Comfortable in the company of lesbian friends like American Natalie Clifford Barney, she exaggerated her prim mien and cultivated her femininity, as though it were a distinguishing quirk. Marie Laurencin was first and foremost a woman, who also painted; Suzanne Valadon was an artist.20

  With her bold contours and plump, self-assured models, Suzanne’s work flew in the face of popular conceptions of femininity and fine art. Added to which, her painting could not be neatly tied to a school. Not surprisingly, Vauxcelles also excluded her from the chapter on women’s painting in the book he wrote on French art. Suzanne’s style and its resistance to categorisation stood between her and the annals of French art history.21

  ‘The history of women’s art is determined by what the critic likes or deems to be acceptable,’ Berthe Weill concluded, aghast. ‘Painters he dislikes must be erased from the History of Art.’22

  Weill need not have worried on Suzanne’s account; anyone brave enough to slight Mme Valadon should expect a consequence. When Vauxcelles put himself forward as a candidate to become the next curator of the Musée du Luxembourg, Suzanne signed a petition raised to protest against his election.23

  Meanwhile, Maurice’s painting career was going from strength to strength. Early canvases from what critics now termed his ‘Montmagny period’ and his ‘Impressionist period’ were a great source of interest. Paintings from his ‘White period’ (from the time Suzanne met Utter to the outbreak of the war), were commanding astonishing prices. His current work, now with more colour and incorporating signs with lettering and even the occasional figure, was in constant demand in France and overseas.

  If Maurice found it hard to conceptualise success abroad without visible evidence, admirers like the Pauwelses, with their soirées and purchases, were a more tangible part of the Utter family’s life. In April that year, Maurice dedicated a poem to Lucie Pauwels by way of thanks.24

  Not only was Maurice’s income keeping the family, but something of his celebrity status reflected on Suzanne as well. In June, the Unholy Trinity showed their work together in an exhibition at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune. Suzanne’s friends were also a constant source of encouragement, and that year Gustave Coquiot threw another banquet in her honour.

  Still, the responsibility of Maurice, who was now legally under her and Utter’s control (the authorities having judged him not of sound mind), was an ongoing concern. Regular trips to Saint-Bernard were essential to help change Suzanne’s perspective and revitalise her. That was where the family headed in the summer of 1925, with invitations urgently being extended to friends and family, including Marie Coca and André Utter’s sister Germaine, to help break the intensity in the increasingly fraught family drama.

  Germaine was a healthy-looking girl with a beautiful mane of golden hair. Both Utter and Suzanne had their different motives for hoping a romance might blossom between her and Maurice. But despite their best efforts, the summer drew to a close and the desired union was yet unformed. Suzanne and Utter resigned themselves to the likelihood that Maurice’s unpredictable behaviour had startled Germaine.25

  The company of family was diverting, but it could scarcely plaster over the widening cracks in Suzanne and Utter’s marriage.

  That summer, in between the couple’s rows, Suzanne also learned of the death of Erik Satie. And so guttered another chapter of her life. The discovery of her portrait in the deceased’s squalid apartment merely confirmed suspicions that she was the only love he had ever known.26 For all the angst, Suzanne had enjoyed moments of true happiness and enormous fun with Satie. His death gave cause for reflection as the fights between her and her husband intensified. Those days had seemed so carefree. Now, the mere sight of Utter’s freshly polished shoes – a sure sign that he was meeting someone he wished to impress – was devastating for its implications.27

  Suzanne could at least console herself that she still exerted a powerful hold over her husband; letters begging her forgiveness after a quarrel, apologising for another loss of temper, attempting to coax her back to a more biddable humour, were common. ‘I ask for the forgiveness of my Suzanne, my wife of whom I am so proud and whom I love,’ read one letter written just two months after Satie’s death. ‘I beg her forgiveness for the harm I have done her by insulting her and for my tempers which prevent her living in peace.’28 Family relations were now fraught with tension and bad faith. But in the stormy sea of life, there was too much at stake to release what they knew.

  Music and dance were a theme that autumn, as mulatto Josephine Baker took Paris by storm with her erotic dance moves and a voice like velvet kisses, and Utter was approached by Paul Guillaume of the Barnes Foundation and asked if Maurice would design the decor and costumes for the Russian Serge de Diaghilev’s forthcoming ballet Barabu.29 It was due to take place at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt the following year. The commission would publicise Maurice�
��s work even more widely, and Utter had no qualms about accepting the proposal.

  But before the show opened, the family had another cataclysm to endure: in January 1926, the door to the apartment in the Rue Cortot closed behind Suzanne and she moved her son and her belongings to number 11, Avenue Junot.

  As she left, Suzanne hoped rather than knew that the move would prove sagacious. One thing was certain: for better or worse, after more than fifteen years, 12, Rue Cortot had become part of her soul. Only the months to come would determine whether it was a part she truly wanted to discard – or whether she had just made the biggest mistake of her life.

  CHAPTER 16

  Behind Closed Doors

  Li o toujours no meichanto lego de chemi a fà.

  (There is always a mile of rough terrain still to travel.)

  OLD LIMOUSIN PROVERB1

  Construction of the Avenue Junot had only begun in 1910, and had controversially involved building over the Maquis, a shambolic stretch of tumbledown shacks which housed many of Montmartre’s poorer artists, rag-and-bone men and second-hand goods dealers. The grand road now taking its place was wide, and the new apartments on either side rose up tall, bourgeois and imposing. The whole street was built to form a curve, and it swept assuredly up the hill. Large, leafy and refined, the avenue was the very antithesis of the narrow, cobbled streets Suzanne had chased through as a child.2

  The family’s living quarters were spacious. From the main reception room, a staircase led up to the first floor and Maurice’s disordered room. There was a studio for Suzanne and plenty of space for the parties and receptions she loved to host. In setting up Maurice’s and the family’s new home, the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune had anticipated every material comfort Suzanne could wish for. Only her heart had been neglected.3

  Ties with the Rue Cortot had not been severed entirely; it was decided that the family should keep the apartment, which Utter would use himself, ‘for work’, he explained.4 Already deeply suspicious of her husband’s activity, Suzanne could hardly feel at ease with the arrangement. It was true that Utter always came back to her. But it soon became clear that, while the family’s move had altered the setting, the characters and the drama being played out remained unchanged.

  Suzanne and Utter’s fights were now ferocious, typically triggered by one or the other’s behaviour or a poor business decision, and invariably fuelled by alcohol. When a row was over and Utter had stormed back to the Rue Cortot, Suzanne collected up the pieces of broken furniture and quietly secreted them in a convenient cupboard under the stairs. Then daily life resumed and the pattern continued.5

  As she settled into her new home, the spring at least brought some familiarity in the form of the Salon des Indépendants and a group show at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune. But just as she was about to leave Paris for Saint-Bernard that summer, Suzanne received an unexpected letter. Its contents shook her to her very core.

  The note was from Conrad Satie, Erik’s brother. He advised her that he had found a bundle of letters his brother had written but never sent – all were addressed to her. Conrad wanted to meet to show her the letters. Suzanne hurriedly penned him a reply:

  Cher ami, your very friendly letter arrived just as I about to leave Paris [sic] – an emergency forces me to put off your visit – if however you can – wait until the last week of August, for I should be back in Paris then.

  The meeting will be a very moving one and so many memories are heart-rending indeed and yet very sweet to me.6

  Having assured Conrad of her friendship, in her haste, Suzanne signed her name twice. When a date was finally agreed for Satie’s correspondence to be handed over, friends reported that Suzanne studied each of the letters closely, several times. Then she gathered them together and burned them.7

  As ever, time with her extended family brought comfort that unsettling summer. Marie Coca sat to pose for a sober-looking portrait. The sitter had aged considerably, but Suzanne depicted her niece with kindly, smiling eyes in a more sympathetic handling than usual. She also painted Germaine seated by a window at the château in Saint-Bernard, her glorious golden hair falling down her back like a modern-day Rapunzel, her attention entirely absorbed by the view below. The young girl’s gaze, like the diagonals of the open window, invited the viewer’s eye outside to where an explosion of green and yellow foliage harmonised with the subject’s hair. The summer concluded on an optimistic note, as Suzanne participated in her most far-flung exhibition yet, in Tokyo.

  Over the following twelve months, her time was divided between the Avenue Junot and Saint-Bernard. In both locations, she painted, socialised and attempted to contain Maurice. Fiery arguments with her husband were followed by profound relief as they made up. There were exhibitions too, including a retrospective show of her work at Berthe Weill’s gallery in January the following year and then a group exhibition with Bernheim-Jeune. She had four pieces on display at the Salon des Tuileries in the spring and she showed The Blue Room (1923) at the Salon du Musée du Luxembourg. She also sent work to the Galerie Max Bing. In May, Suzanne was asked to design a poster for a charity ball that was due to take place in Montmartre in aid of artists, and she executed an exquisite line drawing which showed a back view of a nude holding a palette and paintbrushes in her left hand, with a stream of tumbling coloured foliage falling from the brush she held aloft in her right. She produced many other nudes that year, as well as flower studies and landscapes, taking Saint-Bernard as her subject. In one of her pictures, she depicted the terrace, where she played with the unusual angles of the building glimpsed from the awkward position she had chosen. Certainly, she was working. However, her output was no longer what it used to be.

  Suzanne was now in her 60s and all too conscious of her age. Despite that, she never attended closely to her appearance, and dressed in oversized clothes, with baggy cardigans and shapeless skirts; they were practical and comfy, and to her, that was all that mattered.8 She captured her timeworn face in a harsh and angular self-portrait that year. The fabric, vase and apples around her figure demonstrated her mastery of gentle curves and flowing lines; the application of sharp, angular diagonals to her own face was intentional. Her head was tilted, twisted round to one side and scowling, while the oranges and reds and bold sweeps of the brush conveyed anger and defiance – but also unquestionable strength. And the frame of the mirror into which she looked was included, as though to put the viewer in her position and to ask: what did it feel like to see such a reflection staring back?9

  Suzanne and Maurice were now together a great deal, Utter frequently finding an excuse to evade their company. Again and again, he returned to the Rue Cortot to paint, as though part of him could not release his nostalgia for how things used to be. More damaging was that Utter still nursed a debilitating jealousy of his stepson’s celebrity. ‘Utrillo’s success annoyed me,’ he confessed, ‘I despised him.’10 Maurice’s unassuming approach to his work and innocent wonder at his fame only infuriated the younger man more. On one occasion, Antonin Ponchon called in at Saint-Bernard and enquired as to how Maurice’s current exhibition in Paris was going. Maurice said he knew nothing about it. He was not kept informed of the exhibitions André Utter set up, he explained with acceptance.11 Another time, Maurice dropped in to the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune and noticed an enthusiastic crowd swarming around a painting. Moving closer to investigate the cause of their excitement, he joyously agreed: ‘Isn’t it good? It really is very fine. You would have to be a painter to have done that.’ He seemed completely unaware that he was the author of the masterpiece being admired.12

  To compound Utter’s resentment, Utrillo’s ‘masterpieces’ were increasingly created from postcards. Maurice would carefully grid up picture postcards and turn them into scenes so vivid as to make the viewer feel they were right there on the spot. This way of working appealed to Maurice’s exacting nature and keen eye for precision. It also had the advantage that, on bad days, he did not need to leave the house to continue working. His bru
sh could travel across France to places he might never have visited but which spoke to his inner sensibilities – places like Bessines, his mother and grandmother’s natal town, whose snow-covered church he captured in a haunting painting.

  The crowning glory to Maurice’s achievements that year came in the form of a contract from Bernheim-Jeune, who now felt more confident in his ability to satisfy such an agreement. A regular income in return for paintings – for any artist, it would have been a triumphant coup. For an unstable alcoholic with no formal training and a precarious home life, it bordered on miraculous.13

  Suzanne never begrudged Maurice his success, but rather sang his praises openly. There were several books published on her son that year, including one by Francis Carco for which she provided illustrations. When she was interviewed by author Maximilian Ilyin for a work he was compiling, Suzanne spoke candidly about Maurice’s gift:

  the first stage in the life of a painter is the response to a certain summons: the time when he is unaware of his power, the time of sincerity. The second stage begins with the moment when he discovers the conventional in art and the restraints of his profession, when he exerts himself to create the lie, his lie, which will henceforth be his reality. The third stage, which I shall undoubtedly never attain, is that in which the painter, liberated from the routine of his profession, learns to control even his feelings, and becomes a creator guided only by intuition. […] Well, my son has reached that last stage in an exceptionally short time – a few years. […] He is a genius.14

  Nowadays, when Suzanne and Utter were together, arguments were the norm. ‘You screamed at me,’ Utter wrote that May. ‘I was catching up with Warnod […] That is all I have done wrong. I love you and you know it. You have to forgive me.’15