In 1888, Carl and Karin Larsson moved to Lilla Hyttnäs which became their joint art project. However, once Carl became famous with his beautiful watercolours of family and domestic life, he began to receive prestigious commissions. In 1896 he painted the frescoes for the foyer of the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. The National Museum has a collection of his sketches including this, with opera singers rehearsing for a gala performance of Cora och Alonzo.

For Carl Larsson, art was his way out of poverty. Like so many artists of his time, he went to France where, in 1882, he joined an artists' colony in Grez-sur-Loing, near Paris, and met Karin Bergöö who became his wife. In 1885/6 they moved back to Stockholm to live in one of the now carefully preserved C18 wooden houses like these at Åsogatan 145; it was here that he painted his well-known snowy street scene.

In the late 1850s, Carl Larsson moved with his family to a poor neighbourhood in Östermalm in Stockholm, but by the age of 13 his talent was being recognised. He  enrolled at the Principskolan, the foundation school of the Academy of Fine Arts which he later joined when he was 16. He supported himself during his studies by working as a photographic retoucher, but also threw himself into social activities, including writing for and illustrating the student newspaper "Pallet-skrapp" . This is one of his clever, lively drawings.

The Post is in Stockholm this week and looking at Carl Larsson's connections to the city. Together with his wife, Karin, he is of course associated primarily with Lilla Hyltnäs his family house in Sundborn, almost three hours north west of Stockholm. But he was born in 1853 into difficult and impoverished family circumstances in Gamla Stan, Stockholm's old town. This is his birthplace, Prästgatan 78, photographed in the 1920s, with a plaque to the left of the door.

Suzanne Valadon also painted many stunning still lifes such as this, Bouquet of Tulips (1927, private collection). Her range was wide and her output vast, yet still she has been sidelined and underestimated, something the exhibition aims to correct. It runs until 25th May and although the Centre Pompidou closes for five years this summer, the Musée de Montmartre has Valadon's recreated atelier/apartment on permanent display.

Suzanne Valadon is known for her paintings of both male and female nudes done at a time when both, but especially the former, were considered shocking subjects for a woman. She defied many other conventions; at 18 she gave birth to Maurice Utrillo, whose true paternity was never disclosed, and she later married his artist friend, André Utter, who was one of her first male models. The three - Valadon, Utrillo and Utter - are often referred to a 'la trinité maudite'. Here they are in Valadon's Portraits de famille (1912, Musée d'Orsay) with her mother and Utrillo in the foreground.