Customer Reviews

Suzanne Valadon: The Mistress of Montmartre

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a devourable treat for anyone who loves Paris...the look, the smell, the taste, and the feel of Paris. Lovers of Impressionists...an existential experience is in store. If you didn't know Suzanne Valadon before, you will wonder why. She was the heart and soul of "The City of Light" before and beyond the time when the lights were there! She was a lover to many and a friend to all. The photographs and historical tidbits truly enhance the already delightful time well spent with this book. I hated for it to be over! June Rose is an engaging writer. I want to read more of her work.

I just could not put this book down. This book was well researched and very readable. Excellent.

Although an artist myself, I was completely unaware of the life of Suzanne Valadon, whose colorful career included early life as model and mistress of many 19th century Parisian painters, including Puvis de Cchavannes, a young Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Hers is the face and figure of numberous female images in the work of these and other major impressionists. As if this weren't enough, her career as a notable painter herself has been largely overlooked. She was mentored by unlikely friendship with Degas, who both admired and collected her pictures. Not only this, but she was the mother of Utrillo, whom she herself taught to paint, and who later elipsed her own fame. The author does a remarkable job bringing back to light the adventurous and spirited life of this remarkable woman among the giants of Impressionistism. The book is well writtten, full of interesting anecdote and fact. Text is liberally supplimented with illustrations of Suzanne Valadon's drawings,paintings and etchings, as well as photographs of her and the people she knew throughout her life. For anyone with an interest in Impressionism and women making a mark in the world of art this is a very good read. Such persons deserve to be remembered, and we can thank the writer of this biograply for that.

I read The Mistress of Montmartre and found it fascinating in so much detail.The reaerch that June Rose must have carried out was most inspiring and it was also a wonderful read.
I have read all her previous books and if they are still available I cannot recomend them enough