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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, (1864-1901)
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French postimpressionist
painter, lithographer, and illustrator, who documented the bohemian
nightlife of late-19th-century Paris.
Toulouse-Lautrec was born in Albi into one of the oldest aristocratic
families. He broke both legs as an adolescent, and because of
a congenital calcium deficiency, they remained stunted for the
rest of his life. During his convalescence, his mother encouraged
him to paint. He subsequently studied with French academic painters
L. J. F. Bonnat and Fernand Cormon.
Toulouse-Lautrec frequented the Moulin Rouge and other cabarets
of the Montmartre district of Paris, where his wit attracted
a large group of artists and intellectuals, including Irish
author Oscar Wilde, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, and French
performer Yvette Guilbert. He also frequented the theater, the
circus, and Parisian brothels. |
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Toulouse-Lautrec preserved his impressions
of these places and their celebrities in portraits and sketches
of striking originality and power. Outstanding examples are
La Goulou Entering the Moulin Rouge (1892, Musee Toulouse-Lautrec,
Albi), Jane Avril Entering the Moulin Rouge (1892, Courtauld
Gallery, London), and Au salon de la rue des Moulins (1894,
Mus?e Toulouse-Lautrec). His alcoholic dissipation, however,
eventually brought on a paralytic stroke, to which he succumbed
at Malrom?, one of his family's estates.
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