Suzanne Valadon was a French painter, and the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Before any of that she was a model for `Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. And it was in watching them that she taught herself to paint.
Her atelier – workshop, studio – was in Montmartre, and it is now within a museum, and this is a shot of one part of the atelier. The bright light reflected in the mirror is the light streaming through the windows opposite.
The windows face north in the best tradition of artists’ studios. And in this studio they fill the whole of the north wall of the room, from floor to ceiling. They look out over the buildings that skitter down the hill, because this is Montmartre, the highest point in the city of Paris.
This part of the studio looks posed, and perhaps it was used for a still life, if anyone recognises it from a painting? On the other side of the room are easels and other artists’ tools of the trade, as well as some other props.
Photograph Works 