Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec posters, prints and serigraphs

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born on November 24, 1864, in southern France. Son and heir of Comte Alphonse-Charles de Toulouse, he was the last in the line of an aristocratic family that dated back a thousand years. Today, the family estate houses the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec. As a child, Henri was weak and often sick. But by the time he was ten years old he had begun to draw and paint. At age twelve Toulouse-Lautrec broke his left leg and at fourteen his right leg. The bones did not heal properly, and his legs ceased to grow. He reached maturity with a body trunk of normal size but with abnormally short legs. He was only 4 1/2 feet (1.5 meters) tall. Deprived of the physical life that a normal body would have permitted, Toulouse-Lautrec lived completely for his art. He dwelt in the Montmartre section of Paris, the center of the cabaret entertainment and bohemian life that he loved to depict in his work. Dance halls and nightclubs, racetracks, prostitutes - all these were memorialized on canvas or made into lithographs. Toulouse-Lautrec was very much an active part of this community. He would sit at a crowded nightclub table, laughing and drinking, meanwhile making swift sketches. The next morning in his studio he would expand the sketches into brightly colored paintings. In order to join in the Montmartre life - as well as to fortify himself against the crowd's ridicule of his appearance - Toulouse-Lautrec began to drink heavily. By the 1890s the drinking was affecting his health. He was confined first to a sanatorium and then to his mother's care at home, but he could not stay away from alcohol. Toulouse-Lautrec died on September 9, 1901, at the family chateau of Malrome. Further reading on Toulouse-Lautrec: Toulouse-Lautrec: The Soul of Montmartre (excellent series, both text and images) Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life (best biography) Great Lithographs by Toulouse-Lautrec: 89 Plates, Including 8 in Full Color Henri De Toulouse Lautrec (Cooper) Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec (Art Series) Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists)

When Napoleon III and his city planner Baron Haussmann planned out how to make Paris the most beautiful city in Europe, the first step, naturally, was to grant large sweeps of land near the center of the city to Haussmann's friends and financial supporters. This drove the original inhabitants to the edges of the city: to the districts of Clichy, Le Villette, and the hill with a view of the city, Montmartre. Image: The Moulin Rouge, early in the 20th Century. Click here for a larger version. Since Montmartre was officially outside the city and free of its taxes, and the nuns there made wine, the hill did not take long to become the place to go to get drunk cheaply. From there, it was only a short step for Montmartre to become the center of free-wheeling and decadent entertainment. Life in the Montmartre district of Paris near the turn of the last century, especially in the popular cabaret the Moulin Rouge, was filled with characters like you might find in a movie. In fact, some of the characters in the recent movie "Moulin Rouge" were based on real people -- especially the artist portrayed by John Leguizamo, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. For the fascinating true story of Lautrec and his friends, read on. Crippled at age 12 Image: Lautrec's father, Count Alphonse, creatively dressed in a hunting costume. Click here for a larger version. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born into an aristocratic family in the south of France in 1864. His father, Count Alphonse, was a notorious eccentric known for all kinds of unpredictable behavior: from washing his socks in the river (unheard of for an aristocrat!) to galloping off to a hunt wearing outlandish costumes, to simply disappearing for long stretches of time. The young Henri never became very close to him. Unknown at the time, Henri suffered from a genetic condition that prevented his bones from healing properly. Fatefully, at age twelve, he broke his left leg. And at age fourteen, he broke his right leg. Both legs ceased to grow, while the rest of his body continued to grow normally. At maturity, Lautrec was 4 1/2 feet tall. But his great misfortune was a sort of blessing in disguise, at least from our perspective. After his accidents he was no longer able to follow his father in the typically aristocratic pastimes of riding and hunting. Instead, he focused on sketching and painting. Image: Lautrec sitting for a self portrait. This is "trick photo" was done by Maurice Guibert circa 1890. It would be a snap to do it with Photoshop these days, but back then, it was a real magic trick. Click here for a larger version of the photo. Art and alcohol In his late teens, Lautrec was honored to become a student of the artist Fernand Cormon, whose studio was located on that hill above the city, Montmartre. When he graduated from Cormon's studio, Lautrec gave himself up fully to the bohemian life, spending much of his time drinking and carousing -- and constantly sketching -- in cabarets, racetracks, and brothels. His stunted physique earned him laughs and scorn, and kept him from experiencing many of the physical pleasures offered in Montmartre, a sorrow that he drowned in alcohol. At first it was beer and wine. Then brandy, whiskey, and the infamous absinthe found their ways into his life. Art and alcohol were his only mistresses, and they were mistresses to which he devoted all of his time and energy. He was doing one or both almost every day of his life until he died. Adapting the fad for Japanese style (asymmetric composition, flat areas of color) that then pervaded French art to the also burgeoning art of the picture poster, he created thousands of artworks both to memorialize his friends and to advertise their venues. Among those whose images are now a part of art history are the Moulin Rouge dancers Louise Weber and Jane Avril, and the combative singer/entrepreneur Aristide Bruant. Images: Lautrec, Louise Weber, Jane Avril, and Aristide Bruant. Click on their names for larger versions. The red mill, Moulin Rouge When the Moulin Rouge opened on October 5, 1889, Lautrec had already gained much popularity within the bohemian community and was one of the invite-only guests at the opening night party. The Moulin Rouge, which means "red mill," was just that: a huge windmill painted red. It became a landmark, and a symbol of the joie de vivre -- the joy of life -- in Paris at the time. The Moulin Rouge was the "rendezvous du high life." It was a theater, a concert hall, and a dance hall -- all at the same time. People came from all over to dance, to watch the dancers, and to watch each other watching the dancers. And Lautrec was there, at the same table every night, drinking and sketching everything which caught his fancy, particularly the dancers. The shameless Louise Weber One of the first dancers who caught Lautrec's eye was Louise Weber, nicknamed "La Goulue," (The Glutton). Shameless and outrageous, she earned her nickname through her habit of outdrinking anyone in a bar. Image: Moulin Rouge - La Goulue, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Click here to see a larger version of Moulin Rouge - La Goulue. Click here for Moulin Rouge - La Goulue poster ordering information. Click here to see this poster on shirts and other items. Click here to e-mail this poster as a virtual postcard. Working in a laundry at age 16, she began dancing by borrowing garments left for cleaning by customers and going to the dance halls at night. She quickly drew attention to herself by dancing on tables, displaying the heart embroidered on her underwear, removing men's hats with her toes and, of course, drinking everyone under the table. One of the men La Goulue attracted was Auguste Renoir, the painter. Renoir introduced her to nude modeling, and through these connections she found her way into the fashionable dance clubs of Montmartre. At the Moulin Rouge, she danced with her lanky partner, Jacques Renaudin, whose skeletal frame and rubbery contortions brought him the nickname "Valentin le Desosse," (Valentin the Boneless). Lautrec immortalized these two in his most famous poster, "Moulin Rouge - La Goulue." La Goulue was fiercely ambitious and the idea of being only one of the featured dancers at the Moulin Rouge did not suit her. After just a few years there, she left the Moulin Rouge to start her own dance hall. But people didn't follow La Goulue and the club was a dismal failure. She next attempted to capitalize on her fame by traveling as a belly-dancer, with her own booth, in fairgrounds. But somehow, La Goulue outside the Moulin Rouge was just not what people wanted. Her alcoholism got worse over the years, and she got fatter and fatter. When she eventually returned to Montmartre, no one recognized her. She scraped an existence by selling peanuts, cigarettes, and matches on the streets. On her deathbed in 1929, Weber asked a priest, "Father, will God forgive me? I am La Goulue." The graceful, melancholy Jane Avril When La Goulue left the Moulin Rouge, it didn't take long for a new dancer to take the spotlight. Graceful, refined and melancholy, Jane Avril was the polar opposite of the boisterous Louise Weber. Jane Avril never seemed destined for greatness. She was born out of wedlock, and her father abandoned her and her mother. Her mother beat her cruelly, so she ran away. At age 16 she was imprisoned in a lunatic asylum. Image: Jane Avril - 1899, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Click here to see a larger version. Click here for Jane Avril poster ordering information. Click here to e-mail this poster as a virtual postcard. But Jane was popular with the nuns who cared for her. At a party she charmed them with a flair for dancing. Convinced that the girl was not mad at all, the nuns released her. She soon found Paris and the Moulin Rouge. As a dancer at the Moulin Rouge, her costumes were unique. Even when dancing, she always wore a hat. Combined with a pearl-gray or black skirt, her clothes were said to give the impression of a pale, delicate flower. She invented her own light, supple dance steps, somehow mingling prudery with provocation. Though she drew attention from all, she was a loner at heart and some of Lautrec's many paintings of her show a detached, even sad, woman. The birth of a son in 1910 ended Jane's dancing career. She married the painter Maurice Biais and left Paris. At his death she found herself penniless. She only returned to Paris once after that, at the age of 73 in the war year 1941. Her admirers had tracked her down for a celebratory "grand finale." Even at that age, she improvised a graceful dance. The man in the red scarf, Aristide Bruant The singer-comedian-entrepreneur Aristide Bruant was one of Lautrec's first friends in Montmarte. When Bruant opened his own club, Le Mirliton, Lautrec was one of its first regular patrons. Image: Ambassadeurs -- Aristide Bruant, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Click here to see a larger version of the Aristide Bruant poster. Click here for Aristide Bruant poster ordering information. Click here to email this poster as a virtual postcard. Bruant was famous for wittily insulting and degrading his audiences, to their great amusement. His customers were regularly greeted as "scoundrel," "prostitute," "sonofabitch," and "pig." They were warned. The sign at the door read: "For people who like to be told off." Lautrec was the only patron consistently treated with respect. When Lautrec entered, Bruant would silence the house and proclaim, " Here comes the great painter Toulouse-Lautrec with one of his friends ... and a punk I don't know." When Bruant performed at the club les Ambassadeurs, he asked Lautrec to paint an imposing portrait of him for the poster. At Bruant's insistence, "Ambassadeurs: Aristide Bruant" was posted all over the cabaret, and all over the streets of Paris, drawing considerable attention not just to Bruant but also to the young painter who had so accurately and strikingly portrayed him. It remains one of Lautrec's most famous paintings. Lautrec would do much more work for Bruant, creating the paintings "Aristide Bruant" and "El Dorado" and illustrating books of Bruant's original music. An early grave Image: A self-caricature signed "Lost." Circa 1882. Click here for a larger version. Lautrec's lifestyle could not be sustained. In 1899 he entered what we would today call a detox clinic. In September, 1901 -- one hundred years ago next week -- he passed away at the age of 36. As he lay dying, his mother and a few friends sat at his side. When his father, the rarely-seen Count Alphonse showed up, everyone was astonished -- except Henri. He said, " Good Papa. I knew you wouldn't miss the kill." During Henri's last hours, Count Alphonse behaved as strangely as ever. The count suggesting that they cut off Henri's beard in accordance with certain Arabic customs that he'd heard of, and that they use Henri's shoelaces to flick at noisy flies. Henri's last words were addressed to his father: " Old fool." Joie de vivre Today we know Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as the archetypical bohemian artist of the belle époque, the " beautiful era" in Paris in the last decade of the 19th Century. He helped usher in the new century, and died when the job was done. Lautrec captured the spirit and emotion of the era in his posters and portraits. Although his handicap and his alcohol abuse kept him from enjoying some of life's pleasures, Lautrec clearly shared in the joie de vivre of the time. Today, we can share in it through his artwork.

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Tolouse latrec Tolouse La Trec Toulouse Latrec Toulouse La Trec Toluse La Trec Toluse Latrec Jardin de Paris Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Moulin Rouge Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Moulin Rouge - La Goulue Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Mlle. Eglantine Henri Toulouse-Lautrec La Loge Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Ambassadeurs Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Jardin de Paris Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Divan Japonais Henri Toulouse-Lautrec La Toilette Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Profile of a Woman Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Quadrille at the Moulin R... Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Jane Avril Jardin de Paris Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Salon des Cent Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Le Divan Japonais Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Dressage des Nouvelles pa... Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Ambassadeurs Henri Toulouse-Lautrec El Dorado Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Galerie `65` Cannes Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Le Repos du Modele Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Dancer Seated Henri Toulouse-Lautrec La Clown Cha-U-Kao 1895 Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Aristide Bruant Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Jane Avril (lithograph) Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Aristide Bruant (lithograph) Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Salon in Rue des Moulins Henri Toulouse-Lautrec Bar Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

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