Renoir's Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon

Get ready to Google some art, because this is a biography that will entice readers to look up referenced pieces long before they get to the insets. With prose that is reminiscent of fiction, Hewitt weaves a narrative of the life of artist Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938). The name may not mean much to those outside of artistic circles, but Valadon is a creator worth remembering. Lacking a father who would claim her, Valadon went from a poor daughter of a single mother to a model and consort to Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and other notable artists of the time. With no formal training, she clawed her way into the society of French artists following the Impressionist era. Hewitt's expertise in French literature and art history is evident as she brings this lesser-known historical figure to life. Black-and-white pictures from Valadon's life are welcome augmentations to the somewhat dense biography. Color insets provide vibrant reproductions of the art in which Valadon was a model as well as the pieces that she and her son, Maurice Utrillo, produced. Readers vicariously experience the triumphs and pitfalls of a woman determined to succeed in a man's world on her own terms.