Exhibition: Toulouse-Lautrec - Creator of Icons

The exhibition aims to decipher the artist's exceptional ability to create iconic images and to permanently embed his models in the collective memory.

At the end of the 19th century, Paris experienced the golden age of the artistic poster, driven by technological advances, particularly the rise of lithography and color printing processes. The poster became a field gradually explored by artists like Toulouse-Lautrec, who used it as a ground for experimentation and unprecedented stylistic innovations.

A painter of figures with a profoundly human gaze, Toulouse-Lautrec captured the essence of his contemporaries with remarkable freedom. Through nearly one hundred works, the exhibition at the Caumont Art Center will explore the techniques employed that explain not only the originality and success of Toulouse-Lautrec's works, but also, and above all, their extraordinary enduring appeal. By portraying the celebrities of his time, associating them with instantly recognizable symbols and attributes, Toulouse-Lautrec contributed to their renown and created powerful images that transcend time, elevating them to the status of icons. From fleeting celebrities to timeless figures, he crafted these stars and succeeded in immortalizing contemporary glories, transforming them into symbols of fin-de-siècle Paris.

With its vibrant scenography, the exhibition invites you to immerse yourself in the bohemian atmosphere of Montmartre while highlighting the artist's two preferred mediums: lithography and painting. Drawing on a wealth of previously unseen private collections and major museum institutions such as the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, the Musée d'Orsay, and the Musée Carnavalet, the exhibition explores both intimate and sensitive plein air paintings and iconic posters dedicated to leading figures of Belle Époque entertainment, such as La Goulue, Aristide Bruant, and Jane Avril, as well as those created for the press, publishing, and advertising. It also addresses the theme of theater, particularly through the figure of the voyeuristic spectator, and the issue of prostitution, a central theme for the artist in understanding the benevolent gaze he cast upon his contemporaries. The exhibition will thus offer the opportunity to discover how Toulouse-Lautrec was able, better than anyone else, to capture the essence of Belle Époque Paris and the world of entertainment, and will also address his links with his contemporaries such as Pierre Bonnard, with whom he cultivated a common interest in Japonisme.

This exhibition is produced in collaboration with the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum.