Collection: Toulouse-Lautrec Henry De

(Albi 1864 - Malrome 1901)

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec produced approximately 1,000 paintings, more than 5,000 drawings and 369 lithographs in his short life. His work, inseparable from the Belle Époque period, heralds Art Nouveau by the importance the artist attributes to the so-called minor arts: posters, illustrated menus or programmes, book covers and illustrations.
Lautrec paints what he sees, produces sketches, studies, drafts, preparatory drawings. His lithographic plates are the subject of long research. He also collaborates with magazines and exhibits at the Salon des XX, the Volney circle and the Salon des Indépendants.
Between 1893 and 1894 he assiduously frequents brothels, sometimes lives in them, but above all works there, observing prostitutes in the intimacy of their daily lives. He paints and draws intensely, but suffers from the mockery of women towards his frail physicality due to an accident in his youth, for which he slowly slides into alcoholism. His friends are worried and try to make him change his way of life by pushing him to travel, but they are unsuccessful.
In 1899, ill, he was admitted to a clinic in Neuilly to undergo a detoxification treatment. He painted until the limits of his strength and until death came.
It was only after the retrospective exhibition at the Goupil Gallery in 1914 that Lautrec reached the height of his glory. Monographic and retrospective exhibitions were dedicated to him all over the world and his fame continued to grow.