See Paris as Toulouse-Lautrec saw it - in New York

Associated media

‘The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec’ features over 100 prints and posters from 
MoMA'S collection 



‘The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec: Prints and Posters’


26 July 2014–22 March 2015

The Paul J. Sachs Prints and Illustrated Books Galleries, second floor

, MoMA, New York

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) New York, is showing ‘The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec: Prints and Posters’, an exhibition dedicated to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and drawn almost exclusively from MoMA's collection of posters, lithographs, printed ephemera, and illustrated books. A preeminent artist of Belle Époque Paris, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) brought the language of the late-19th-century avant-garde to a broad public through his posters, prints, and illustrations for journals and magazines. His work allows entry into many facets of Parisian life, from politics to the rise of popular entertainment in the form of cabarets and café-concerts.

Organized thematically, the exhibition explores five subjects that together create a portrait of Lautrec's Paris: café-concerts and dance halls; actors, singers, dancers, and performers; his sensitive depictions of women from all walks of life, including his landmark portfolio Elles, depicting prostitutes during nonworking hours; his creative circle, highlighting designs for song sheets for popular music, programmes for avant-garde theatrical productions, and his contributions to magazines and intellectual reviews; and the pleasures of the capital. The exhibition features over 100 examples of the best-known works created during the apex of his career.

Lautrec made the venues and performers of late-19th-century Paris famous through his posters and prints, and in turn, it was his work for them that brought him the greatest acclaim. Among those in Lautrec's spotlight were the dancer La Goulue (born Louise Weber), featured in several lithographs, including La Goulue (1894) and Au Moulin Rouge, La Goulue et sa Soeur (1892), that reference Lautrec's debt to depictions of actors in 18th-century Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts. As in the Japanese prints, Lautrec often uses signs and symbols – a specific gesture, an accessory or accoutrement, a hairstyle – rather than a portrait likeness to indicate his subject. Other performers featured include Cha-U-Kao, the Moulin Rouge clown whose name and costume were inspired by Japanese motifs –depicted in La Clownesse au Moulin Rouge (1897) and La Danse au Moulin Rouge (1897) – and May Milton, an Irish actress who had come to Paris with a British dance troupe and who is often marked by her pug nose and a peculiar kind of hat, as depicted on the cover of the song sheet Eros vanné (1894). 


‘The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec: Prints and Posters’ is organized by Sarah Suzuki, associate curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, MoMA. 

It will be reviewed by Stephen Bury of the Frick Art Reference Library, New York,  shortly in Cassone.

If you would like to try Cassone free for a week, go to our Subscribe/register page and use the CASSTRY voucher - details on the register page