Toulouse-Lautrec

Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center presented From the Moulin Rouge to Music City: The Graphics of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The exhibit featured 50 works of the famed French artist, including a series of graphics and original drawings.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s nascent career was transformed in 1890, when he secured a significant commercial poster commission. Arguably, the work that ensued altered the trajectory of art history. The young, aristocratic Frenchman was engaged to create a design that would extend the extraordinary popularity of Le Moulin Rouge, Paris’ hottest cabaret of the day. He struck just the right note with his oversized (4’ x 6.5’) lithograph. In fact, it was such a sensation that it dissolved the artificial boundary between the two disciplines of fine art and advertising art, making way for Pop Art to appear 60 years later.

Toulouse-Lautrec was quickly anointed as the leading visual chronicler of the bawdy nightlife occurring in Montmartre, on the city’s outskirts. As a habitué of the district’s rowdy bars, thriving cafes and provocative cabaret performances, his work was honest, compelling and unlike anyone else’s. It took its cues from the influence of 18th century Japanese woodblock prints and showcased unusual, unattractive color combinations, surprising perspectives, uncommon cropping, and heavy black lines. Parisians and collectors could not stop clamoring for more. And, because Lautrec was featuring his personal chums—-like can-can dancers, bar owners, prostitutes, fellow patrons, waiters, and clowns—-in his posters, he was simultaneously transforming them into superstars. It lent his work an authenticity that could not be feigned. It also set the stage for the culture of celebrity worship that would come to the fore decades into the future.