Toulouse-Lautrec

In good condition - has markings from use - due to differing weights in books, postage maybe adjusted at checkout.

The popular concept of Toulouse-Lautrec as an emotionally insecure, physically deformed aristocrat living a reckless bohemian existence in fin-de-siècle Paris is enshrined in John Huston's classic movie Moulin Rouge. The publicity for this described Lautrec as a 'gifted painter and tortured soul.' Major exhibitions in Chicago in 1979 and London in 1991/2, however have suggested that the interpretation of Lautrec's work as that of artist as victim is an over-simplification. The critic Robert Hughes has acclaimed his 'precocious modernity' and argued that his 'caustic and tender view of the world speaks directly to our culture of narcissistic display.'

Frank Milner's richly illustrated and penetrating study focuses not only on the Montmartre cabaret life Lautrec portrayed so brilliantly in his witty and elegant graphics, but also on his claim to a place in the history of avant-garde painting in the late nineteenth century. His depictions of cabarets and entertainments use a wide variety of media and unusual combinations, such as gouache on cardboard and oil on wood. His superlative draftsmanship is uncontested, although his most individual to paint handling, his watery dissonant use of stained colour, has found fewer enthusiasts. It was the invitation to design a poster for the Moulin Rouge cabaret in 1891 that launched Lautrec in the medium for which he is best known, the lithographed poster. The uncompromising directness and bold colouring of this first effort were so successful that, in the last ten years of his short life, he produced no fewer than 351 lithographs.

Toulouse-Lautrec, illustrated with 90 large-format, full-color plates, takes a fresh and fascinating look at this legendary artist and his immense influence on twentieith-century art.