Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge. 1891–92. Oil on board, 31 1/4 × 23 1/4" (79.4 × 59.0 cm). Gift of Mrs. David M. Levy

“The poster, that’s all there is!”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

During his brief artistic career, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec captured the lively and often sordid atmosphere of Montmartre’s late 19th-century dance halls, cabarets, and theaters. Recording the performances he viewed and the establishments he visited on a nightly basis, he functioned as artist and narrator: his paintings, drawings, prints, and posters expose the complexities of the quickly changing age in which he lived. Between 1890 and 1900, Paris saw tremendous growth in its nightlife scene, with nearly 300 café-concerts serving women and men who drank, smoked, and fraternized in ways previously unpermitted to them in public. In such prominent clubs as the Moulin Rouge and less reputable institutions like the Moulin de la Galette, aristocrats often rubbed shoulders with the working class. It was within these establishments that Lautrec found the subjects he would voraciously document over the next decade.

Despite descending from three lines of aristocracy, Lautrec derived artistic inspiration from the people he lived among in Montmartre’s working-class neighborhood, including prostitutes, singers, and fellow artists. In La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge (1891–92), he depicts Louise Weber, a cancan dancer nicknamed, “The Glutton,” linking arms with two women at the Moulin Rouge. In her confident gaze, Lautrec captures the unabashed brazenness of female performers in modern café life. In other paintings, he portrayed tired prostitutes queuing for mandated health checks. Together, these works amount to a snapshot of the dramatically shifting gender and class relations in Paris at the turn of the century.

Lautrec chronicled his era largely through printmaking—something few other artists had attempted to do in this medium. From 1891 until his death in 1901, he produced nearly 350 lithographic posters, editioned portfolios, and illustrations for journals and theater programs recounting life in Belle Époque Paris. The rise of color lithography in 1891 ushered in a new form of printmaking, and Lautrec found great success in this medium. This process allowed him to print large posters in color, including Divan Japonais, and he soon began experimenting with fresh applications, among them crachis, a technique that creates a splatter effect. In a letter to his mother, he remarked, “I have just invented a new process that can bring me quite a bit of money. Only I have to do it all myself….My experiments are going awfully well.”1

Lautrec also created advertisements, many of which hung in Paris’s streets and public squares, promoting upcoming musical and dance performances. One of his preferred clubs was Le Mirliton. The venue’s owner, Aristide Bruant, commissioned the artist to produce a number of posters in 1893, including Aristide Bruant in His Cabaret (Aristide Bruant dans son cabaret) and Aristide Bruant. Lautrec’s first and most well-known poster—Moulin Rouge, La Goulue—depicts the animated dance hall in the Moulin Rouge. Spending many evenings at this famed establishment, the artist entertained a close relationship with the venue and its owners, who, at one point, hung his painting of a circus in the entry hall. This poster, one of more than 200 of his printed works in MoMA’s collection, epitomizes Lautrec’s representation of the places he visited and the company he kept during his daily life in 19th-century Montmartre.

Note: Opening quote is from the artist, as quoted in Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Sarah J. S. Suzuki, The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec : Prints and Posters from The Museum of Modern Art (New York: The Museum Of Modern Art, 2014), p. 12.

Emily Cushman, Collection Specialist, Department of Drawings and Prints, 2016

  1. Lautrec letter to his mother, Paris, November 1893 letter 168, in Lucien Goldschmidt and Herbert D. Schimmel, eds. Unpublished Correspondence of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. London: Phaidon, 1969, p. 164.

Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901), known as Toulouse-Lautrec (French: [tuluz lotʁɛk]), was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century allowed him to produce a collection of enticing, elegant, and provocative images of the sometimes decadent affairs of those times. Born into the aristocracy, Toulouse-Lautrec broke both his legs around the time of his adolescence and, possibly due to the rare condition pycnodysostosis, was very short as an adult due to his undersized legs. In addition to alcoholism, he developed an affinity for brothels and prostitutes that directed the subject matter for many of his works, which record details of the late-19th-century bohemian lifestyle in Paris. He is among the painters described as being Post-Impressionists, with Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Georges Seurat also commonly considered as belonging in this loose group. In a 2005 auction at Christie's auction house, La Blanchisseuse, Toulouse-Lautrec's early painting of a young laundress, sold for US$22.4 million, setting a new record for the artist for a price at auction.
Wikidata
Q82445
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Getty record
Introduction
Son of Count Alphonse de Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa and Countess Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa, née Adèle Tapié de Céleyran. During his short life, Toulouse-Lautrec produced a staggering volume of work – more than 5,000 drawings and some 370 lithographs. He died at the Château de Malromé near Langon. Comment on works: genre
Nationalities
French, Parisian
Gender
Male
Roles
Artist, Ceramicist, Designer, Lithographer, Graphic Designer, Genre Artist, Graphic Artist, Painter
Names
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, Treclau, Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri-Marie-Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec Montfa, Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec, Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Monfa Lautrec Monfa, Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa, Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse- Lautrec Monfa, Anri de Tuluz-Lotrek, Lo-te-lieh-kʻo, Heng-li Te Tu-lu-ssu Lo-te-lieh-kʻo, טולוז־לוטרק, Henri Marie Raymond De Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Marie Raymond Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri-Marie-Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa, Henri Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa, De Lautrec, h. de toulouse-lautrec, H. de Toulouse Lautrev, henri de toulouse lauterec, henri toulouse-lautrec, Henry de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henry Toulouse-Lautrec, h. toulouse lautrec, Lautrec, henri de toulouse lautrec, henri tolouse lautrec, henri toulouse lautrec, toulouse lautrec, Toulouse-Lautrec, lautrec toulouse, Toulouse Lautrec, H. de Toulouse-Lautrec
Ulan
500029114
Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

165 works online

Exhibitions

Publications

  • Félix Fénéon: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 248 pages
  • MoMA Highlights: 375 Works from The Museum of Modern Art Flexibound, 408 pages
  • MoMA Now: Highlights from The Museum of Modern Art—Ninetieth Anniversary Edition Hardcover, 424 pages
  • The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec: Prints and Posters from The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 160 pages
  • Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: Images of the 1890s Exhibition catalogue, Paperback, pages
  • Toulouse-Lautrec: paintings, drawings, posters and lithographs Exhibition catalogue, Paperback, pages
  • Toulouse-Lautrec, Odilon Redon Paperback, pages
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