Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

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.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Photo taken in 1894
Born
Henry Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa

(1864-11-24)24 November 1864
Albi, Tarn, Second French Empire
Died9 September 1901(1901-09-09) (aged 36)
Saint-André-du-Bois, French Third Republic
Resting placeCimetière de Verdelais
Known forPainting, printmaking, drawing, draughting, illustration
Notable workAt the Moulin Rouge
Le Lit
La Toilette
MovementPost-Impressionism, Art Nouveau
Signature

Born into the aristocracy, Toulouse-Lautrec broke both his legs around the time of his adolescence and, due to the rare condition pycnodysostosis, was very short as an adult due to his undersized legs. In addition to his alcoholism, he developed an affinity for brothels and prostitutes that directed the subject matter for many of his works recording many details of the late-19th-century bohemian lifestyle in Paris. Toulouse-Lautrec 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, his early painting of a young laundress, sold for US$22.4 million, setting a new record for the artist for a price at auction.[1]

Early life

Henri[2] Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa was born at the Hôtel du Bosc in Albi, Tarn, in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France, the firstborn child of Alphonse Charles Comte de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (1838–1913)[3] and his wife Adèle Zoë Tapié de Celeyran (1841–1930).[4] He was a member of an aristocratic family (descended from both the Counts of Toulouse and Odet de Foix, Vicomte de Lautrec and the Viscounts of Montfa, in southern France). His younger brother was born in 1867 but died the following year. Both sons enjoyed the titres de courtoisie of Comte.[5] If Henri had outlived his father, he would have been accorded the family title of Comte de Toulouse-Lautrec.[6]

After the death of his brother, Toulouse-Lautrec's parents separated and a nanny cared for him.[7] At the age of eight, Toulouse-Lautrec lived with his mother in Paris, where he drew sketches and caricatures in his exercise workbooks. A friend of his father, René Princeteau, sometimes visited to give informal lessons. Some of Toulouse-Lautrec's early paintings are of horses, a speciality of Princeteau, and a subject Lautrec revisited in his "Circus Paintings".[7][8]

In 1875, Toulouse-Lautrec returned to Albi because his mother had concerns about his health. He took thermal baths at Amélie-les-Bains, and his mother consulted doctors in the hope of finding a way to improve her son's growth and development.[7]

Disability and health problems
Mr. Toulouse paints Mr. Lautrec (c. 1891), a photomontage by Maurice Guibert

Toulouse-Lautrec's parents were first cousins (their mothers were sisters),[9] and his congenital health conditions were attributed to a family history of inbreeding.[10]

At the age of 13, Toulouse-Lautrec fractured his right femur, and at 14, he fractured his left femur.[11] The breaks did not heal properly. Modern physicians attribute this to an unknown genetic disorder, possibly pycnodysostosis (sometimes known as Toulouse-Lautrec Syndrome),[12][13] or a variant disorder along the lines of osteopetrosis, achondroplasia, or osteogenesis imperfecta.[14] Toulouse-Lautrec's legs ceased to grow when he reached 1.52 m or 5 ft 0 in.[15] He developed an adult torso while retaining his child-sized legs.[16]

Paris
The Marble Polisher, 1882–1887, Princeton University Art Museum, probably painted while a student of Fernand Cormon, demonstrating his classical training[17]

During a stay in Nice, France, his progress in painting and drawing impressed Princeteau, who persuaded Toulouse-Lautrec's parents to allow him return to Paris and study under the portrait painter Léon Bonnat. He returned to Paris in 1882.[18] Toulouse-Lautrec's mother had high ambitions and, with the aim of her son becoming a fashionable and respected painter, used their family's influence to gain him entry to Bonnat's studio.[7] He was drawn to Montmartre, the area of Paris known for its bohemian lifestyle and the haunt of artists, writers, and philosophers. Studying with Bonnat placed Toulouse-Lautrec in the heart of Montmartre, an area he rarely left over the next 20 years.

After Bonnat took a new job, Toulouse-Lautrec moved to the studio of Fernand Cormon in 1882 and studied for a further five years and established the group of friends he kept for the rest of his life. At this time, he met Émile Bernard and Vincent van Gogh. Cormon, whose instruction was more relaxed than Bonnat's, allowed his pupils to roam Paris, looking for subjects to paint. During this period, Toulouse-Lautrec had his first encounter with a prostitute (reputedly sponsored by his friends), which led him to paint his first painting of a prostitute in Montmartre, a woman rumoured to be Marie-Charlet.[7]

A thin woman's back and hair are prominent. She faces away from the viewer and has on only a towel and socks.
La toilette, oil on board, 1889

Early career

In 1885, Toulouse-Lautrec began to exhibit his work at the cabaret of Aristide Bruant's Mirliton.[19]

With his studies finished, in 1887, he participated in an exposition in Toulouse using the pseudonym "Tréclau", the verlan of the family name "Lautrec". He later exhibited in Paris with Van Gogh and Louis Anquetin.[7]

In 1885, Toulouse-Lautrec met Suzanne Valadon. He made several portraits of her and supported her ambition as an artist. It is believed that they were lovers and that she wanted to marry him. Their relationship ended, and Valadon attempted suicide in 1888.[20]

Rise to recognition

In 1888, the Belgian critic Octave Maus invited him to present eleven pieces at the Vingt (the 'Twenties') exhibition in Brussels in February. Theo van Gogh, the artist's brother, bought Poudre de Riz (Rice Powder) for 150 francs for the Goupil & Cie gallery.

From 1889 until 1894, Toulouse-Lautrec took part in the Salon des Indépendants regularly. He made several landscapes of Montmartre.[7] Tucked deep into Montmartre in the garden of Monsieur Pere Foret, Toulouse-Lautrec executed a series of pleasant en plein air paintings of Carmen Gaudin, the same red-headed model who appears in The Laundress (1888).

In 1890, during the banquet of the XX exhibition in Brussels, he challenged to a duel the artist Henri de Groux who criticised van Gogh's works. Paul Signac also declared he would continue to fight for Van Gogh's honour if Lautrec was killed. De Groux apologised for the slight and left the group and the duel never took place.[21][22]

Toulouse-Lautrec contributed several illustrations to the magazine Le Rire during the mid-1890s.[23]

Interactions with women

In addition to his growing alcoholism, Toulouse-Lautrec also visited prostitutes.[24] He was fascinated by their lifestyle and the lifestyle of the "urban underclass" and incorporated those characters into his paintings.[25] Fellow painter Édouard Vuillard later said that while Toulouse-Lautrec did engage in sex with prostitutes, "the real reasons for his behaviour were moral ones ... Lautrec was too proud to submit to his lot, as a physical freak, an aristocrat cut off from his kind by his grotesque appearance. He found an affinity between his condition and the moral penury of the prostitute."[26]

The girls in the brothels inspired Toulouse-Lautrec. He would frequently visit one located in Rue d'Amboise, where he had a favourite called Mireille.[27] He created about a hundred drawings and fifty paintings inspired by the life of these women. In 1892 and 1893, he created a series of two women in bed together called Le Lit, and in 1894 painted Salón de la Rue des Moulins from memory in his studio.[27]

He declared, "A model is always a stuffed doll, but these women are alive. I wouldn't venture to pay them the hundred sous to sit for me, and god knows whether they would be worth it. They stretch out on the sofas like animals, make no demand and they are not in the least bit conceited." He was well appreciated by the ladies, saying, "I have found girls of my own size! Nowhere else do I feel so much at home".[27]

The Moulin Rouge

When the Moulin Rouge cabaret opened in 1889,[19] Toulouse-Lautrec was commissioned to produce a series of posters. His mother had left Paris and, though he had a regular income from his family, making posters offered him a living of his own. Other artists looked down on the work, but he ignored them.[28] The cabaret reserved a seat for him and displayed his paintings.[29] Among the works that he painted for the Moulin Rouge and other Parisian nightclubs are depictions of the singer Yvette Guilbert; the dancer Louise Weber, better known as La Goulue (The Glutton) who created the French can-can; and the much subtler dancer Jane Avril.

London
Woman at the Tub from the portfolio Elles (1896)

Toulouse-Lautrec's family were Anglophiles,[30] and though he was not as fluent as he pretended to be, he spoke English well enough.[28] He travelled to London, where he was commissioned by the J. & E. Bella company to make a poster advertising their paper confetti (plaster confetti was banned after the 1892 Mardi Gras)[31][32] and the bicycle advert La Chaîne Simpson.[33]

While in London, he met and befriended Oscar Wilde.[28] When Wilde faced imprisonment in Britain, Toulouse-Lautrec became a very vocal supporter of him, and his portrait of Oscar Wilde was painted the same year as Wilde's trial.[28][34]

Alcoholism
La Promeneuse by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Oil on cardboard, dated 1892.

Toulouse-Lautrec was mocked for his short stature and physical appearance, which may have contributed to his abuse of alcohol.[35]

He initially drank only beer and wine, but his tastes expanded into liquor, namely absinthe.[24] The "Earthquake Cocktail" (Tremblement de Terre) is attributed to Toulouse-Lautrec: a potent mixture containing half absinthe and half cognac in a wine goblet.[36] Due to his underdeveloped legs, he walked with the aid of a cane, which he hollowed out and kept filled with liquor in order to ensure that he was never without alcohol.[28][37]

Cooking skills

A fine and hospitable cook, Toulouse-Lautrec built up a collection of favourite recipes – some original, some adapted – which were posthumously published by his friend and dealer Maurice Joyant as L'Art de la Cuisine.[38] The book was republished in English translation in 1966 as The Art of Cuisine[39] – a tribute to his inventive (and wide-ranging) cooking.

Death
Toulouse-Lautrec's grave in Verdelais

By February 1899, Toulouse-Lautrec's alcoholism began to take its toll and he collapsed from exhaustion. His family had him committed to Folie Saint-James, a sanatorium in Neuilly-sur-Seine for three months.[40] While he was committed, he drew 39 circus portraits. After his release, he returned to the Paris studio and travelled throughout France.[41] His physical and mental health began to decline because of alcoholism and syphilis.[42]

On Monday 9 September 1901, at the age of 36, he died from complications due to alcoholism and syphilis at his mother's estate, Château Malromé, in Saint-André-du-Bois. He is buried in Cimetière de Verdelais, Gironde, a few kilometers from the estate.[42][43] His last words reportedly were "Le vieux con!" ("The old fool!"), his goodbye to his father.[28]

After Toulouse-Lautrec's death, his mother, Adèle Comtesse de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa, and his art dealer, Maurice Joyant, continued promoting his artwork. His mother contributed funds for a museum to be created in Albi, his birthplace, to show his works. This Musée Toulouse-Lautrec owns the most extensive collection of his works.

Art
At the Moulin Rouge, 1892, Art Institute of Chicago. Self-portrait in the crowd (background center-left).
Moulin Rouge: La Goulue, poster (1891)

In a career of less than 20 years, Toulouse-Lautrec created:

  • 737 paintings on canvas
  • 275 watercolours
  • 363 prints and posters
  • 5,084 drawings
  • some ceramic and stained-glass work
  • an unknown number of lost works[13]

His debt to the Impressionists, particularly the more figurative painters like Manet and Degas, is apparent, that within his works, one can draw parallels to the detached barmaid at A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Manet and the behind-the-scenes ballet dancers of Degas. His style was also influenced by the Ukiyo-e genre of Japanese woodblock prints, which became popular in the Parisian art world.[44]

He excelled at depicting people in their working environments, with the colour and movement of the gaudy nightlife present but the glamour stripped away. He was a master at painting crowd scenes where each figure was highly individualised. At the time they were painted, the individual figures in his larger paintings could be identified by silhouette alone, and the names of many of these characters have been recorded. His treatment of his subject matter, whether as portraits, in scenes of Parisian nightlife, or as intimate studies, has been described as alternately "sympathetic" and "dispassionate".

Toulouse-Lautrec's skilled depiction of people relied on his highly linear approach emphasising contours. He often applied paint in long, thin brushstrokes leaving much of the board visible. Many of his works may be best described as "drawings in coloured paint."[45]

On 20 August 2018, Toulouse-Lautrec was the featured artist on the BBC television programme Fake or Fortune?. Researchers attempted to discover whether he had created two newly-discovered sketchbooks.[46]

Films

Music videos

Television
  • In the SpongeBob SquarePants Season 1 episode "Squidward The Unfriendly Ghost", when Patrick and SpongeBob are carrying Squidward around in servitude to him, they stumble upon an aquatic version of the painting Can-can. Squidward quips that it is "Too loose, Lautrec," a pun on Toulouse-Lautrec.

Literature

Selected works
See also Category:Paintings by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Paintings

Posters
  • Aristide Bruant in his cabaret, 1892, lithograph
    Aristide Bruant in his cabaret, 1892, lithograph
  • Ambassadeurs – Aristide Bruant, 1892, lithograph
    Ambassadeurs – Aristide Bruant, 1892, lithograph
  • Reine de Joie, 1892, chromolithograph
    Reine de Joie, 1892, chromolithograph
  • Divan Japonais, 1892–93, crayon, brush, spatter and transferred screen lithograph, printed in 4 color-layers
    Divan Japonais, 1892–93, crayon, brush, spatter and transferred screen lithograph, printed in 4 color-layers
  • Avril (Jane Avril), 1893, lithograph printed in five colours
    Avril (Jane Avril), 1893, lithograph printed in five colours
  • The German Babylon, 1894, lithograph published by Victor Joze
    The German Babylon, 1894, lithograph published by Victor Joze

Other

Photos of Toulouse-Lautrec
  • Photo by Maurice Guibert c. 1887
    Photo by Maurice Guibert c. 1887
  • Photo by Maurice Guibert, 1892
    Photo by Maurice Guibert, 1892
  • Photo by Maurice Guibert
    Photo by Maurice Guibert
  • With a nude model in his studio, by Maurice Guibert c. 1895
    With a nude model in his studio, by Maurice Guibert c. 1895

See also

References
  1. Berwick, Carly (2 November 2005). "Toulouse-Lautrec Drives Big Night at Christie's". Nysun.com. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  2. "Toulouse-Lautrec: The art of bacchanalia". The Independent. 22 September 2011. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
  3. "Count Alphonse Charles de Toulouse Lautrec Monfa 1838–1913 Father of Henri de Toulouse Lautrec". gettyimages.co.uk.
  4. "Histoire et généalogie de la famille de Toulouse-Lautrec Montfa et de ses alliances". genealogie87.fr. Retrieved 17 February 2015.
  5. C., Ives (1996). Toulouse-Lautrec in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996. ISBN 9780870998041. Retrieved 17 September 2019. Comte Henri-Marie-Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec 1864-1901
  6. Bellet, H. (24 April 2012). "Toulouse-Lautrec gallery at the Palais de Berbie - review". UK Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2019. From his father he would have inherited the title of Count of Toulouse-Lautrec.
  7. Author Unknown, "Toulouse-Lautrec" – published Grange Books. ISBN 1-84013-658-8 Bookfinder – Toulouse Lautrec
  8. ArT Blog: Toulouse-Lautrec at the Circus: The "Horse and Performer" Drawings blogs.princeton.edu Archived 28 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  9. Morrison, David (25 November 2013). "The Genealogical World of Phylogenetic Networks: Toulouse-Lautrec: family trees and networks". The Genealogical World of Phylogenetic Networks. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
  10. Toulouse-Lautrec, H., Natanson, T., & Frankfurter, A. M. (1950). Toulouse-Lautrec: the man. N.p. p. 120. OCLC 38609256
  11. "Why Lautrec was a giant". The Times. UK. 10 December 2006. Retrieved 8 December 2007.
  12. Valdes-Socin, H. (9 January 2021). "The syndrome of Toulouse-Lautrec". Journal of Endocrinological Investigation. Springer Science and Business Media LLC. 44 (9): 2013–2014. doi:10.1007/s40618-020-01490-4. ISSN 1720-8386. OCLC 8875586623. PMID 33423220. S2CID 231576363.
  13. Angier, Natalie (6 June 1995). "What Ailed Toulouse-Lautrec? Scientists Zero in on a Key Gene". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 December 2007.
  14. "Noble figure". The Guardian. UK. 20 November 2004. Retrieved 8 December 2007.
  15. Harris, Nathaniel (1989). The Art of Toulouse-Lautrec. New York: Gallery Books. p. 27. OCLC 1193360125.
  16. ""Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec". AMEA – World Museum of Erotic Art". Ameanet.org. 22 February 1999. Archived from the original on 24 October 2019. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  17. "The Marble Polisher (1992-16)". Princeton University Art Museum. Princeton University.
  18. "Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901)". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  19. "Paris Art Studies - Toulouse Lautrec Posters 1864–1901". www.parisartstudies.com. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  20. Neret, Gilles (1999). Toulouse Lautrec. Taschen. p. 196.
  21. Gimferrer, Pere (1990). Toulouse Lautrec. Rizzoli. ISBN 0-8478-1276-6.
  22. Bailey, Martin (12 September 2019). "New discoveries: Paul Signac painted watercolours of Van Gogh's asylum". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
  23. "Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec > Lithographies > Le Rire". www.toulouselautrec.free.fr.
  24. Wittels, Betina; Hermesch, Robert (2008). Breaux, T. A. (ed.). Absinthe, Sip of Seduction: A Contemporary Guide. Fulcrum Publishing. p. 35. ISBN 978-1-933-10821-6.
  25. Powell, John; Blakeley, Derek W.; Powell, Tessa, eds. (2001). Biographical Dictionary of Literary Influences: The Nineteenth Century, 1800-1914. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 417. ISBN 978-0-313-30422-4.
  26. (Toulouse-Lautrec, Donson 1982, p. XIV)
  27. Neret, Gilles (1999). Toulouse Lautrec. Germany: Taschen. pp. 134–135. ISBN 3-8228-6524-9.
  28. "Toulouse Lautrec: The Full Story". UK: Channel 4. Retrieved 1 October 2010.
  29. "Blake Linton Wilfong Hooker Heroes". Wondersmith.com. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  30. Smith, Joan (10 July 1994). "Book Review/ Short and not sweet: Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life - Julia Frey: Weidenfeld, pounds 25". independent.co.uk. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
  31. Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de; Donson, Theodore B. (1982). Great Lithographs by Toulouse-Lautrec. Griepp, Marvel M. Courier Corporation. p. XII. ISBN 978-0-486-24359-7.
  32. "Toulouse-Lautrec - TL. 14 - Confetti". www.yaneff.com. Retrieved 3 July 2019.
  33. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1896). "La Chaîne Simpson". San Diego Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 11 March 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
  34. "'Oscar Wilde' 1895 by Toulouse-Lautrec". Mystudios.com. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  35. "Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Biography". lautrec.info. Archived from the original on 21 June 2010.
  36. "Absinthe Service and Historic Cocktails". AbsintheOnline.com. Archived from the original on 23 October 2007. Retrieved 8 December 2007.
  37. Gately, Iain (2008). Drink, A Cultural History of Alcohol. Gotham books. p. 338. ISBN 978-1-592-40303-5.
  38. "Toulouse-Lautrec: The art of bacchanalia". The Independent. 12 November 2006.
  39. Grigson, J. Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book (1984), p. 422.
  40. Clair, Jean, ed. (2004). The Great Parade: Portrait of the Artist as Clown. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada. Yale University Press. p. 170. ISBN 978-0-300-10375-5.
  41. (Toulouse-Lautrec, Donson 1982, p. V)
  42. "Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec Biography". toulouse-lautrec-foundation.org. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  43. Bennett, Lennie (16 November 2003). "More than art's poster boy". St. Petersburg, Florida: sptimes.com. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  44. Berger, Klaus. (1992) Japonisme in Western Painting from Whistler to Matisse. Translated by David Britt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 199. ISBN 9780521373210.
  45. "Henri Toulouse-Lautrec". Lefevre Fine Art. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  46. "Fake or Fortune?, Series 7, Toulouse-Lautrec". BBC. 19 August 2018. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
  47. Variety; Cowie, Peter (1999). Variety (ed.). The Variety Insider. Penguin Group USA. p. 173. ISBN 978-0-399-52524-7.
  48. "Moulin Rouge!" IMDb.
  49. "Midnight in Paris (2011) | Full Cast & Crew", IMDb.
  50. Liner notes, Adam Ant Hits VHS compilation, CBS Fox Video 649950, 1986
  51. "Miss Ida Heath, danseuse anglaise".
  52. "Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec | The Box with the Gilded Mask". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 10 February 2021.

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