The Circus (1889): Art, History and Details

The Circus (1889) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Suzanne Valadon (French, 1865–1938).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The attribution of this painting to Suzanne Valadon has been rejected by several authorities. Others support the attribution, arguing that the painting is merely atypical because it is an early work, signed and dated 1889. Valadon did not begin to develop her mature style until 1891.She was the mother of artist Maurice Utrillo and a prolific painter herself, although she never received any formal artistic training.

Object facts

• Title: The Circus
• Date: 1889
• Creator attribution: Suzanne Valadon (French, 1865–1938)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on fabric
• Dimensions: Unframed: 48.8 x 60 cm (19 3/16 x 23 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1958.56

A detail from the museum

Besides being a prolific painter, Suzanne Valdon served as the model for Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Collection credit

Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art. In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• "Accessions of American and Canadian Museums." The Art Quarterly 21, no. 1 (Spring 1958): 82-106.
• Francis, Henry S. "Report for the Year 1958: Painting Department." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art XLVI no. 6 (June, 1959): 115-122

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.