Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Montfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901), known as Toulouse-Lautrec (French: [tuluz lotʁɛk]), was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator. His immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris's Belle Époque in the late 19th century allowed him to produce popular works of art from decadent affairs.
Born into the aristocracy, Toulouse-Lautrec broke both his legs during adolescence, leaving him with a stunted appearance. In later life, he developed an affinity for brothels and prostitutes that directed the subject matter for many of his works, which record details of the late-19th-century bohemian lifestyle in Paris. He is among the painters described as Post-Impressionists, with Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Georges Seurat also commonly considered as belonging in this loose group.
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Montfa was born at Demoiselles d'Imbert du Bosc (his great-aunts) home at rue de l'École Mage (presently 14, rue Henri de Toulouse Lautrec), Albi, in the south of France, the firstborn child of Count Alphonse de Toulouse-Lautrec Montfa (1838–1913) and Adèle Zoë Tapié de Celeyran (1841–1930). He was a member of an aristocratic family (descended from both the Counts of Toulouse and Odet de Foix, Vicomte de Lautrec, as well as the Viscounts of Montfa). His younger brother was born in 1867 but died the following year. Both sons enjoyed the titres de courtoisie of Comte. If Toulouse-Lautrec had outlived his father, he would have inherited the family title of Comte de Toulouse-Lautrec.
After the death of his brother, Toulouse-Lautrec's parents separated, and a nanny cared for him. At the age of eight, Toulouse-Lautrec lived with his mother in Paris, where he drew sketches and caricatures in his exercise workbooks. A friend of his father, René Princeteau, sometimes visited to give informal lessons. Some of Toulouse-Lautrec's early paintings are of horses, a speciality of Princeteau's and a subject Toulouse-Lautrec later revisited in his "Circus Paintings".
In 1875, Toulouse-Lautrec returned to Albi because his mother had concerns about his health. He took thermal baths at Amélie-les-Bains, and his mother consulted doctors in the hope of finding a way to improve her son's growth and development.
Disability and health problems
Toulouse-Lautrec's parents were first cousins (their mothers were sisters), and his congenital health conditions have often been attributed to a family history of inbreeding.
At the age of 13, Toulouse-Lautrec fractured his right femur, and at age 14, he fractured his left femur. The breaks did not heal properly. Modern physicians attribute this to an unknown genetic disorder, possibly pycnodysostosis (sometimes known as 'Toulouse-Lautrec Syndrome'), or a variant disorder along the lines of osteopetrosis, achondroplasia, or osteogenesis imperfecta. Toulouse-Lautrec's legs ceased to grow when he reached 1.52 m (5 ft 0 in). He developed an adult torso while retaining his child-sized legs.
During a stay in Nice on the French Riviera, his progress in painting and drawing impressed Princeteau, who persuaded Toulouse-Lautrec's parents to allow him to return to Paris and study under the portrait painter Léon Bonnat. He returned to Paris in 1882. Toulouse-Lautrec's mother had high ambitions and, with the aim of her son becoming a fashionable and respected painter, used their family's influence to gain him entry to Bonnat's studio. He was drawn to Montmartre, the area of Paris known for its bohemian lifestyle and the haunt of artists, writers, and philosophers. Studying with Bonnat placed Toulouse-Lautrec in the heart of Montmartre, an area he rarely left over the next 20 years.
After Bonnat took a new job, Toulouse-Lautrec moved to the studio of Fernand Cormon in 1882 and studied for a further five years and established the group of friends he kept for the rest of his life. At this time, he met Émile Bernard and Vincent van Gogh. Cormon, whose instruction was more relaxed than Bonnat's, allowed his pupils to roam Paris, looking for subjects to paint. During this period, Toulouse-Lautrec had his first encounter with a prostitute (reputedly sponsored by his friends), which led him to paint his first painting of a prostitute in Montmartre, a woman rumoured to be Marie-Charlet.
In 1885, Toulouse-Lautrec began to exhibit his work at the cabaret of Aristide Bruant's Mirliton.
With his studies finished, Toulouse-Lautrec participated in an exposition in 1887 in Toulouse using the pseudonym "Tréclau", the verlan of the family name "Lautrec". He later exhibited in Paris with Van Gogh and Louis Anquetin.
In 1885, Toulouse-Lautrec met Suzanne Valadon. He made several portraits of her and supported her ambition as an artist. It is believed that they were lovers and that she wanted to marry him. Their relationship ended, and Valadon attempted suicide in 1888.
In 1888, the Belgian critic Octave Maus invited Lautrec to present eleven pieces at the Les XX (the 'Twenties') exhibition in Brussels in February. Theo van Gogh, the brother of Vincent van Gogh, bought Poudre de Riz ('Rice Powder') for 150 francs for the Goupil & Cie gallery. From 1889 to 1894, Toulouse-Lautrec took part in the Salon des Indépendants regularly. He made several landscapes of Montmartre. Tucked deep into Montmartre in Monsieur Pere Foret's garden, Toulouse-Lautrec executed a series of pleasant en plein air paintings of Carmen Gaudin, the same red-headed model who appears in The Laundress (1888).
In 1890, during the banquet of Les XX exhibition in Brussels, he challenged to a duel the artist Henry de Groux, who criticised van Gogh's works. Paul Signac also declared he would continue to fight for Van Gogh's honour if Lautrec was killed. De Groux apologised for the slight and left the group, and the duel never took place.
Toulouse-Lautrec contributed several illustrations to the magazine Le Rire during the mid-1890s.
In addition to his growing alcoholism, Toulouse-Lautrec also visited prostitutes. He was fascinated by their lifestyle as well as that of the "urban underclass", and he incorporated those characters into his paintings. Fellow painter Édouard Vuillard later said that while Toulouse-Lautrec did engage in sex with prostitutes, "the real reasons for his behaviour were moral ones ... Lautrec was too proud to submit to his lot, as a physical freak, an aristocrat cut off from his kind by his grotesque appearance. He found an affinity between his condition and the moral penury of the prostitute."
The prostitutes inspired Toulouse-Lautrec. He would frequently visit a brothel located in Rue d'Amboise, where he had a favourite called Mireille. He created about a hundred drawings and fifty paintings inspired by the life of these women. In 1892 and 1893, he created a series of two women in bed together called Le Lit, and in 1894 he painted Salón de la Rue des Moulins from memory in his studio.