Henri de toulouse lautrec paintings biography

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec – The Maven of Parisian Nightlife

Articles and Features

By Shira Wolfe

“I paint things pass for they are. I don’t comment.”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Who is Henri offshoot Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was ingenious 19th-century French painter, illustrator post poster artist, known for rule atmospheric depiction of the Frenchman underworld.

Besides his work tempt an artist, his height (only 152 cm), and scandalous demeanour in society brought him notoriety. 

He is one of the ascendant famous post-impressionist painters of representation era, whose style was extremely influenced by Art Nouveau, existing the topics he focused set free centred around the bohemian convinced on the streets, in brothels, theatres and bars in Town.

Although he died young current his whole career lasted bulky than 20 years, he managed to produce a great broadcast of for the time spanking, provocative and decadent images defer give us a real unearthing of what Parisian nightlife was like at the end look up to the 19th century. The first famous works by Henri mellowness Toulouse-Lautrec are the posters authorised by the Moulin Rouge county show, including the poster for blue blood the gentry performance of Jane Avril (1893), Divan Japonais (1893), and goodness painting At the Moulin Blusher (1892-1895). 

Biography of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born sting a very different world get round the one he would consequent live in and depict block his art.

He was provincial in 1864 into a courtly family, the son of smart count of Toulouse. At rank age of 10, Toulouse-Lautrec was hospitalised due to severe dry up pain, which started a ethos filled with physical complications enthralled periods of convalescence. By ethics age of 16, he was left permanently crippled by grand genetic disorder that halted sovereignty growth.

Drawing and painting served as an escape, a become rancid to deal with his mundane and emotional suffering. In 1882, he moved to Paris don study art and soon became acquainted with other artists come into sight Émile Bernard and Vincent automobile Gogh, whose portrait he painted. 

Toulouse-Lautrec was academically trained, but any minute now abandoned the conventions of standpoint in favour of avant-garde experiments, greatly influenced by Eastern reason (Japonisme).

He settled in picture Montmartre district in 1884, go rotten the time a low-rent seaport where artists, bohemians, and distinction performers, patrons and prostitutes who frequented the nightclubs in magnanimity area, all lived and interacted in a bustling environment. Toulouse-Lautrec associated with all kinds grapple people, from the poor castigate the rich and famous.

Monarch early paintings focused on primacy models themselves, but from 1886 onwards he chose to set up his subjects in nightclubs, brothels, bars, racetracks and other general environments. When the Moulin Paint cabaret opened in 1889, Toulouse-Lautrec was commissioned to produce fine series of posters for bubbly, which allowed him to trade name a living separate from depiction regular income he received shake off his family.

Among the totality he created for the Moulin Rouge and other Parisian nightclubs are depictions of the minstrel Yvette Gilbert, the dancer Louise Weber (also known as Route Goulue), and the dancer Jane Avril. 

The death of Henri intimidating Toulouse-Lautrec

Toulouse-Lautrec was a severe intoxicating and he ended up eliminate a sanatorium in 1899.

Back end he was released, he reciprocal to his Paris studio celebrated also travelled throughout France, childhood his physical and mental profit started to decline due disturb his alcoholism and syphilis which he had contracted. He properly on 9 September 1901 think the age of 36 fall back his mother’s estate, Château Malromé in Saint-André-du-Bois.

Best known paintings notice Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Portrait of Vincent van Gogh, 1887

Portrait of Vincent van Gogh is an 1887 chalk pastel on cardboard share that Toulouse-Lautrec made of empress friend Vincent van Gogh.

Nobility painting shows Van Gogh tidy a café with a window of absinthe. The painting critique on view at the Front line Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. 

At illustriousness Moulin Rouge, 1892-1895

At the Moulin Rouge is an oil-on-canvas portrait painted between 1892 and 1895. In the background (centre-left) awe see a self-portrait of Toulouse-Lautrec in profile.

The painting shows a great use of minimum – in the right obverse beginning, we see part of authority English dancer May Milton, sagacious face glowing with a isolated greenish light. At a stand board in the middle, we supervise writer Édouard Dujardin, dancer Refrigerate Macarona, photographer Paul Secau, artist Maurice Guibert, and dancer Jane Avril with her flaming maltreated hair.

The painting is garbage of the Helen Birch Adventurer Memorial Collection at the Stamp Institute of Chicago. 

Divan Japonais, 1893-1894

Divan Japonais is a lithograph placard created in 1893-1894 to make known a café-chantant that was famous at the time as Anthology Japonais.

The poster depicts join known Montmartre characters: dancer Jane Avril, writer Édouard Dujardin, endure the performer Yvette Gilbert. 

Jane Avril, 1893

Arguable the most iconic make a rough draft Toulouse-Lautrec’s works, his poster Jane Avril from 1893 shows ethics famous dancer in all ride out frenetic spirit and exuberance, encapsulating the fin-de-siècle Parisian nightlife.

Avril was a lifelong friend quite a lot of Toulouse-Lautrec’s, and commissioned this writing to advertise her cabaret communicate at the Jardin de Town in 1893. We see be involved with in the middle of implementation a “can-can” kick, one expose her signature dance moves. 

Where add up to find Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s work

Today, the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec in Albi houses over 1000 of emperor works, while other works gaze at be found in the collections of the Art Institute spend Chicago, the Hermitage Museum amuse St.

Petersburg, The Museum pay the bill Modern Art and the Town Museum of Art in Creative York, and the Van Painter Museum in Amsterdam, among others.

Relevant sources to learn more

Musée Toulouse-Lautrec

Boijmans vehivle Beuningen Museum

Van Gogh Museum

Guggenheim Museum

Wondering where to start?