Painting Her Pleasure

Painters Marie Vassilieff, Émilie Charmy and Suzanne Valadon explored sexuality and questioned gender identity. Working in early twentieth-century Paris, these women contravened social mores, challenged traditional and avant-garde artistic practices and partook in the making of the modern nude.

While sexuality and the nude were prime subjects for male artists in the early twentieth century, for female artists, revealing sexual desire on canvas was deemed unacceptable. Painting her pleasure examines three remarkable women who defied this convention.

Marie Vassilieff (1884–1957), Émilie Charmy (1878–1974), and Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938) probed sexuality in a forthright manner and questioned gender identity in their representations of the human form. They depicted the nude in a sexually dissident way, ushering in new subject matter for female artists – the male nude, the Black body, the pregnant nude and nude self-portrait. Treating these subjects was an act that defied the foundations of the nude practice and the tradition of art itself. As a result of their unorthodox practices, each artist encountered censorship.

Attention to Vassilieff, Charmy and Valadon offers rare female insights from a time when most women’s voices were stifled. Examining their work sheds light on the complex ways in which women responded to the evolution of gender roles and sexual mores. These rebellious women painters contravened social decorum, challenged traditional and avant-garde artistic practices and partook in the making of the modern nude.

Building on the momentum of recent bestsellers like Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men, Painting her pleasure spotlights three extraordinary women who defied convention in the male-dominated world of early 20th-century Paris. Suzanne Valadon, Émilie Charmy, and Marie Vassilieff boldly claimed the nude— one of art’s most enduring and contested subjects—as their own.

These trailblazing artists shattered taboos with their depictions of the male nude, the Black female nude, the pregnant nude, and even the rare nude self-portrait. Their work not only challenged the boundaries of modernism but also paved the way for later feminist artists and thinkers.

Lauren Jimerson’s meticulously researched and beautifully written account places these women at the heart of the avant-garde, revealing the cultural stereotypes and gender regimes they worked against. Complete with numerous previously unpublished images, including 16 pages of colour illustrations, the book offers a fresh and intersectional feminist perspective on class, privilege, and race alongside gender.

Whether you’re an art historian, a feminist scholar, or simply someone inspired by stories of creative defiance, Painting her pleasure is an essential addition to your collection.