1898
Ink on paper
h21 x w35cm
Unique

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)  was a French Post-Impressionist painter and graphic artist who observed and documented with great psychological insight the personalities and facets of Parisian nightlife and the French world of entertainment in the 1890s. Born in 1864, into a wealthy, aristocratic family, whose lineage extended back to Charlemagne, Toulouse-Lautrec began drawing at the age of 10, and his enthusiasm for art grew as a result of his being incapacitated in 1878 by an accident in which he broke his left thighbone. His right thighbone was fractured a little more than a year later in a second mishap, and these accidents, requiring extensive periods of convalescence and often painful treatments, left his legs atrophied and made walking difficult. As a result, Toulouse-Lautrec devoted ever greater periods to art in order to pass away the frequently lonely hours.

Toulouse-Lautrec enrolled in the Lycée Fontanes (now Lycée Condorcet) in Paris in 1872, but gradually moved on to private painting tutors, including the artist René Princeteau, who’s fame arose from his depiction of military and equestrian subjects, executed in a 19th-century academic style. Toulouse-Lautrec resisted the academic regime of his tutors and his use of free-flowing, expressive line, often becoming pure arabesque, resulted in highly rhythmic compositions.

In the mid-1880s, Toulouse-Lautrec began his lifelong association with the bohemian life of Montmartre. The cafés, cabarets, entertainers, and artists of this area of Paris fascinated him and led to his first taste of public recognition. He focused his attention on depicting popular entertainers such as Jane Avril, Loie Fuller, May Milton, and clowns such as Cha-U-Kao and Chocolat. In 1884 Toulouse-Lautrec made the acquaintance of Aristide Bruant, a singer and composer who owned a cabaret called the Mirliton. Bruant asked him to prepare illustrations for his songs and offered the Mirliton as a place where Toulouse-Lautrec could exhibit his works. By this means and through reproductions of his drawings in Bruant’s magazine Mirliton, he became known in Montmartre and started to receive commissions.

Toulouse-Lautrec sought to capture the effect of the movement of the figure through freely handled line and colour that in themselves conveyed the idea of movement. His lines were no longer bound to what was anatomically correct; colours were intense and in their juxtapositions generated a pulsating rhythm; laws of perspective were violated in order to place figures in an active, unstable relationship with their surroundings. A common device of Toulouse-Lautrec was to compose the figures so that their legs were not visible; thus, eliminating specific movement, replacing it with the essence of movement. The result was an art throbbing with life and energy that, in its formal abstraction and overall two-dimensionality, provided the foundations of Fauvism and Cubism in the early 20th century.

Rejecting notions of high and low art, Toulouse-Lautrec began creating posters in 1891. Posters afforded Toulouse-Lautrec the possibility of a widespread impact for his art, no longer restricted by the limitations of easel painting.

Toulouse-Lautrec was most fascinated by the pleasures of Paris and those who enjoyed them, and explored the lesser-depicted haunts of Parisian society. He was fascinated by those on the fringes of society and spent lengthy periods observing the actions and behaviour of prostitutes and their clients.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s health deteriorated throughout the 1890s. Born with a genetic condition that limited his growth, he was five feet tall and his frequently ironic tone failed to mask a fundamental dislike of his physical appearance. His letters contain many derogatory remarks about his body and references to an increasing number of ailments, including syphilis. Drinking heavily in the late 1890s, when he reputedly helped popularise the cocktail, he suffered a breakdown at the beginning of 1899 after the sudden, unexplained departure of his mother from Paris, which he interpreted as a betrayal. The effect was severe, and he was committed shortly after to a sanatorium in Neuilly-sur-Seine. This decision was made by the artist’s mother, against the advice of relatives and friends of the artist, in the hope of avoiding a scandal. Toulouse-Lautrec remained in the sanatorium until May 1899. While there he was able to demonstrate his lucidity and power of memory by preparing a number of works on the theme of the circus. Toulouse-Lautrec died in 1901, less than three months before his 37th birthday.

Today, Toulouse-Lautrec’s work can be found in most major museum collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The National Gallery, London, and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

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