Louis Valtat, Portrait Of Suzanne Valtat, Circa 1902, Ink

Suzanne Valtat, circa 1902
Ink on embossed paper
Initials stamped lower right
34 x 45 cm
Provenance : artist's studio
Related work: to be compared with the painting Suzanne Valtat au renard (Sotheby's sale, New-York, 18/05/22, Lot 267)

Born in Dieppe on August 8, 1869, Louis Valtat studied at the École des Beaux Arts, while completing his training at the Académie Julian, where he befriended Albert André and Pierre Bonnard. Winner of the Prix Jauvin d'Attainville in 1890, he set up his studio on rue de La Glacière in Paris. He exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants in 1893, then at the Salon des Cent. Stricken with phthisis, he left for treatment in Banyuls, where George-Daniel de Monfreid introduced him to Aristide Maillol.

In 1895, continuing his convalescence in Arcachon, Louis Valtat produced a number of brightly-toned paintings which, exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1896, were noticed by Félix Fénéon. Fénéon mentions them in the Revue Blanche; these paintings herald Le Fauvisme, which will cause a scandal at the 1905 Salon d'Automne.

He appears with twenty canvases at the group exhibition organized by Paul Signac at the Galerie Durand Ruel, in March 1899. Ambroise Vollard signs an agreement with Valtat, acquiring virtually all of his output for over ten years. Russian collector Ivan Morossov buys several paintings. Valtat befriends Signac and Renoir, whom he visits regularly in the south.

Louis Valtat is named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 1927 and presents six paintings at the 1951 Le Fauvisme exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris. After the exodus of 1940 and the years of occupation, Louis Valtat, suffering from glaucoma, never left his studio on avenue de Wagram, where he produced his last paintings.

His work is conserved at the musées de Bordeaux, Besançon, Toulon, Cahors, Nancy, Nice, Roubaix, the Fondation Bemberg, the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, the Musée d'Orsay as well as in Geneva, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Palm Beach, Florida.