Two Women Drying Themselves

Art Historical Context

Suzanne Valadon's *Two Women Drying Themselves* (1895) captures an intimate, everyday moment of two women toweling off after bathing, rendered with her characteristic boldness and realism. A pioneering female artist in late 19th-century Paris, Valadon rose from modeling for masters like Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas to forge her own path in Post-Impressionism. Her works often celebrated the female body from a woman's gaze, challenging the male-dominated gaze of her era and emphasizing natural forms without idealization. This print is a soft-ground etching with foul biting in black ink on ivory wove paper, measuring about 30 × 20 cm. Soft-ground etching allows artists to trace drawings directly onto the plate via textured paper, producing fluid, crayon-like lines that mimic Valadon's sketchy style. The "foul biting"—unintentional acid pitting—adds a gritty, organic texture, enhancing the work's raw, unpolished vitality and highlighting the experimental printmaking techniques of the fin-de-siècle avant-garde. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints and Drawings department, this piece underscores Valadon's rarity as a woman mastering print media amid societal barriers. It invites viewers to appreciate the quiet dignity of domestic life, bridging personal vulnerability with artistic innovation.