Toulouse-Lautrec

by Edward Lucie-Smith

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) is rightly one of the best known of all nineteenth-century French artists. He conveys with a unique flair the glitter and glamour of Parisian nightlife, and at the same time lays bare its artificiality.

Crippled and stunted form childhood by two falls that broke his thighs, he was forever isolated from society by his deformity. His response was to immerse himself in the dross of society. He threw himself into the capital’s  demi-monde  and chose to portray the more trivial – if vital –  actresses, clowns, dancers, brothels, race-tracks. He also, finally, turned to alcohol, which caused his collapse and death.

Yet his spirit remained surprisingly unscathed, as did the enormous richness of this talent. At first influenced by the Impressionists – he particularly admired Degas – he produced classics in many oil paintings, posters, lithographs and drawings, a selection of which are here reproduced in 48 full-colour plates, forming an ideal introduction to this most spontaneous of artists.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1983

About the author

John Edward McKenzie Lucie-Smith, known as Edward Lucie-Smith, is an English writer, poet, art critic, curator and broadcaster.

Lucie-Smith was born in Kingston, Jamaica, moving to the United Kingdom in 1946. He was educated at The King's School, Canterbury, and, after a little time in Paris, he read History at Merton College, Oxford from 1951 to 1954.

After serving in the Royal Air Force as an Education Officer and working as a copywriter, he became a full-time writer (as well as anthologist and photographer). He succeeded Philip Hobsbaum in organising The Group, a London-centred poets' group.

At the beginning of the 1980s he conducted several series of interviews, Conversations with Artists, for BBC Radio 3. He is also a regular contributor to The London Magazine, in which he writes art reviews. A prolific writer, he has written more than one hundred books in total on a variety of subjects, chiefly art history as well as biographies and poetry.

In addition he has curated a number of art exhibitions, including three Peter Moores projects at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; the New British Painting (1988–90) and two retrospectives at the New Orleans Museum of Art. He is a curator of the Bermondsey Project Space.