When we view great works of art, we're naturally drawn to ask how the artist conveyed emotions and messages and made certain aesthetic choices. Sometimes we also wonder about the people, if any, depicted: were they even real or did they exist only in the artist's imagination? In her eloquent new biography, Catherine Hewitt breaks down this wall to show readers the exceptional and tumultuous life of the model and artist Suzanne Valadon. Valadon, whose first name was Marie-Clémentine before she changed it to Suzanne as a teen, was a model for many Impressionist paintings, most famously for Renoir's Dance in the City and Dance at Bougival.

The story begins in the 1850s with Valadon's mother, Madeleine, in the rural French town of Bessines. After giving birth out of wedlock, Madeleine moved to Paris in 1870 in ...