Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - Portfolio of 12 lithographs

Advertising graphics and the production of posters for nightclubs are among the most significant aspects of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's artistic career. The artist, though of aristocratic origins, always found his true calling, both human and artistic, in the Montmartre neighborhood, dotted with cabarets, trattorias, wine bars, and café-concerts. Here, Lautrec, feeling himself an outcast due to his physical appearance, loved to associate with society's outcasts, that population of artists in disrepute, nightclub patrons, dancers, and prostitutes that characterize his work. Modernity, in fact, is central to Toulouse-Lautrec's work, and advertising graphics, in this sense, are an exemplary aspect, not only for the subjects depicted, but also and above all for the language developed by the painter.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is one of the key figures who led contemporary art from Impressionism to Post-Impressionism, laying the foundations for what would later become the avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century. This is evident in his rejection of Impressionist hatching and the concept of plein air painting, favoring instead a focus on human types, their physiognomies rendered through linear and angular lines that already foreshadowed Expressionism. This is even more evident in his beautiful poster production, an excellent selection of which is on display here. The artist's advertising intent pushes him to further develop his synthetic and modern style. He now definitively abandons perspective, naturalism, and chiaroscuro, to achieve a captivating image that would capture the viewer's attention. And so too the use of color, in bright tones and spread across broad, flat chromatic areas, shows us how the extraordinary personality of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, in addition to having pointed the way towards contemporary expressionism, also laid the foundations of modern advertising graphics.

Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec was born on November 24, 1864, in Albi, in the medieval palace of his family, whose noble origins traced back to Charlemagne. In 1884, he moved to Montmartre with friends, a place that proved to be an inexhaustible source of inspiration, and where he opened his own painting studio in 1886. He was a regular at cabarets and cafés, and from its founding in 1889, he became a regular guest at the Moulin Rouge. Many of the cabaret's characters, including La Goulue, Yvette Guilbert, the dancer Jane Avril, the cabaret owner Aristide Bruant, and Valentin le Désossé, were immortalized through Lautrec's paintings and posters. An admirer of Cézanne, Renoir, Manet, and especially Degas, Lautrec was deeply interested in Japanese woodcuts, which he discovered through Van Gogh. With his concise, linear, and angular lines, which explored the psychology of his subjects, he paved the way for the Expressionist avant-garde. He died in 1901.

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