Executed in 1922, Fleurs dans un vase bleu is a sumptuous example from Suzanne Valadon’s mature oeuvre. Untrained and unbound to any one particular style or movement, Valadon paints in a vibrant Fauvist color palette of blues, magentas, oranges, and greens. Indeed, one of Valadon's signature artistic traits is her fearless use of color, which she began exploring fully in the early 1920s. The present work depicts a curvilinear, lapis-colored vase; a large white carnation in full bloom centers the picture, while lilies, dahlias, and anemones in varying stages of bloom extend toward the composition’s edges. Rich swaths of color, broken only by spindly stems, bleed into one another in the background – anticipating Valadon’s masterpiece executed the following year, La Chambre bleu (see fig. 1). Valadon's vigorous cross-hatching that defines the background transforms it into an expressive space, infusing the composition with an unbridled energy. The highly abstract backdrop, rather than a mere setting, now plays an active role in the narrative, calling to mind the rich color fields and expressionist brushwork of the New York School painters nearly 30 years later. Here, Valadon imbues life and modernity into a centuries-old subject matter.

Born on September 23, 1865 in Bessines-sur-Gartempe, France, Valadon was the child of an unmarried, working-class mother. At fifteen years old, she joined the circus as an acrobat. That same year, she also began working in the bohemian district of Montmartre as a professional artist’s model for numerous prominent artists including Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. It was through her posing sessions with these titans of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism that Valadon developed the gestures, brushwork, and drawing techniques of these masters, emerging as a successor to her older peers without formally having been their pupil. Valadon’s humble place in society allowed her to define her own artistic identity, free from the prevailing norms of her female contemporaries. Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt, for example, came from upper middle class families, a fact reflected in their more bourgeois subject matter and less experimental stylistic approach. Unencumbered by formal training, she defied the artistic restraints that often constrained her institutionally educated peers. Her works reflect this artistic independence and are characterized by an unrestrained quality, with figures that exude a robust and unapologetic vitality.

Valadon’s most essential and enduring genres of painting were floral still-life paintings like Fleurs dans un vase bleu and female nude portraits. She treated each with an exacting balance between the rigor of masculine vision and feminine silhouettes. This balance is evident in the present work’s juxtaposition of the pleasantly rounded vase with the sharp angularity of the stems of the bouquet. Whether depicting flora or the female body, the artist combines relatively heavy outlines with a supple, vibrant ampleness, giving her subjects a sense of presence and self-possession.

Valadon enjoyed institutional recognition and commercial success within her lifet.mes , unlike many female artists now recognized as critical members of the art-historical canon. Edgar Degas was the first person to purchase drawings from her, and he introduced her to other collects ors, including Paul Durand-Ruel and Ambroise Vollard. In 1894, Valadon was accepted as an exhibitor in the fiercely competitive Salons de la Société National des Beaux-Arts, and by the t.mes of Fleurs dans un vase bleu’s execution, she had been exhibiting in the Salon d'Automne and Salon des Independants for nearly a decade.

Since its completion during the same year as Valadon’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris, Fleurs dans un vase bleu has been held in important private collects ions such as that of Henri Francois Tecoz-Stussy. Tecoz-Stussy, a Swiss-banker born in Lausanne in 1919, achieved prominence as Chairman of Investment Bank Zurich. He balanced a successful career with a strong commitment to philanthropy and family and died in Montreux in 1982. Additionally, prominent institutional collects ions such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York hold works by the artist from the same period as Fleurs dans un vase bleu, further substantiating the work's importance.