The hallmark of her work is her distinctive empathy for her subjects—especially female subjects—but one even feels it in her landscapes and still life compositions.
History remembers her as Suzanne—a reference to the biblical story of Susannah and the Elders made by her sometimes lover Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: Valadon, you see, began her career modeling for old men like Auguste Renoir and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.