Congratulations! Toulouse-Lautrec Poster Contest Winners

Our judges were blown away by the quality and variety of submissions to our Toulouse-Lautrec poster contest! We asked participants to show us what the belle époque of today is in a modern-day poster, using Toulouse-Lautrec Illustrates the Belle Époque as inspiration. Without further ado: here are the winners! Thanks to everyone who submitted. These five posters, along with a selection of staff favorites, will be on view at Phillips after 5 on April 6.

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Grand Prize Winning submission by Carolyn Wright

GRAND PRIZE WINNER: Carolyn Wright
“As an untrained artist who really only went to school to learn how to teach others about words and stories, any foray into art is an experiment for me. Toulouse-Lautrec’s work is as accessible for me as it was for Paris.  Like Toulouse-Lautrec, I’m drawn most to capturing people: their expressions and their reactions to the world around them, showcasing movement and joy when I can. I love to showcase the resilience and talent of youth the most, probably because the majority of my day is spent convincing children that their potential is infinite and their skills extraordinary. I used cut paper and brush tip pens to put a modern spin on Toulouse-Lautrec’s signature style.”

Feigenbaum.Sam_La Marche Des Femmes

Honorable Mention: Sam Feigenbaum

HONORABLE MENTION: Sam Feigenbaum
“What I’ve always loved about Toulouse-Lautrec was his deeply humanizing affectation towards the private lives of the women close to him. All over Europe, artists of great renown are painting women as high-class objects of desire, and here is Toulouse-Lautrec: painting low-class objects of desire as women. And while his lithographs are more conservative than his paintings, what I see Toulouse-Lautrec drawn to today is a curiosity with what the most resilient women in his life would’ve been drawn to. So I made a poster, with deference to the greatly talented artist, of a women’s march movement in his style.”

Chao.Victoria_untitled

Honorable Mention: Victoria Chao

HONORABLE MENTION: Victoria Chao
“Paying homage to the whimsy of Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters’ typography and the drama of his subjects’ clothing, this piece envisions the belle époque of today as a social media fueled era of experience-seeking over material-possessing. A musician stands onstage surrounded by a sea of flashing smartphones, posed similarly as Toulouse-Lautrec did in many of his posters—slightly off-center with movement in both the foreground and background, but with the focus always on the colorful subject.”

Venne.Daniel_Lautrec Poster

Honorable Mention: Daniel Venne

HONORABLE MENTION: Daniel Venne
“This poster design is an update of Toulouse-Lautrec’s images of dance halls and night-time gathering spots. Rather than a depiction of a specific nightclub, this is for the ‘bar crawls’ that partiers enjoy—specifically one that might take place in Dupont, home of The Phillips Collection. The young woman’s head-wrap is a nod to the scarf worn by the performer Aristide Bruant in Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters. Although today’s nightclubs are less likely to have a real star appear, the two partiers in the background seem to see themselves as stars—taking a selfie.”

Breighner.Steve_Apres 5 v1

Honorable Mention: Stephen Breighner

HONORABLE MENTION: Stephen Breighner
“[My poster is done in the loose style] that was Toulouse-Lautrec’s style; vague in some respects yet tight in others, especially the women, great lines, great  impressions amidst unusually odd-colored backgrounds, such as  greenish-yellow or yellow. I wonder if it represented the atmosphere he felt in places such as the Moulin Rouge or was more to do with an absinthe-induced haze, or both. Heavy contrast as well. My entry depicts a young woman on her way into the Apres Five at The Phillips Collection with the date of the April edition.”

Open Call for Toulouse-Lautrec Inspired Posters

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Along with the opening weekend of special exhibition Toulouse-Lautrec Illustrates the Belle Époque, we kicked off a poster contest inspired by the artist. We want to see your modern-day creations using the exhibition as a jumping off point. We’ll display the top five posters at April’s Phillips after 5 (in custom frames—thanks Framebridge!), plus print and distribute the winning poster to attendees. Did we mention there’s also a $200 cash prize? With representatives from the Phillips, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, and A Creative DC, our panel of judges will evaluate submissions from a variety of perspectives and expertise.

Read the full call for entry here. Nothing beats a visit to the exhibition for some in-person inspiration, but here are some detail shots from the posters and prints in the show to get your wheels turning.

detail_The Simpson Chain

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Simpson Chain (detail), 1896. Brush, crayon, and spatter lithograph, printed in three colors. Key stone printed in blue, color stones in red and yellow on wove paper, 32 5⁄8 × 47 1/4 in. Private Collection

detail_Jane Avril 1893

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril (detail), 1893. Brush and spatter lithograph. Key stone printed in olive green on wove paper. Unrecorded trial proof, 47 5⁄8 × 34 5⁄8 in. Private collection

detail_Le Tocsin

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Le Tocsin (detail), 1895. Brush and spatter lithograph, printed in two colors. Key stone before text printed in blue with a turquoise-green tint stone on wove paper, 22 1/2 × 17 13⁄16 in.

detail_May Belfort

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, May Belfort (detail), 1895. Crayon, brush, and spatter lithograph, printed in five colors. Key stone printed in olive green, color stones in red, black, gray, and yellow on wove paper, 31 5⁄16 × 24 in. Private collection

detail_Divan Japonais

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Divan Japonais (detail, 1892–1893. Crayon, brush, spatter, and transferred screen lithograph, printed in four colors. Key stone printed in olive green, color stones in black, yellow, and red on wove paper, 31 3/4 × 23 15⁄16 in.

detail_Moulin Rouge, La Goulue

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge, La Goulue (detail), 1891. Brush and spatter lithograph, printed in four colors. Key stone printed in black, color stones in yellow, red, and blue on three sheets of wove paper, 75 3⁄16 × 46 1⁄6 in. Private collection

detail_Old Song

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Old Song (detail), 1898, crayon lithograph, printed in black with a beige tint stone on laid paper. Only state, first edition, Yvette Guilbert album, plate 5, 11 9⁄16 × 9 9⁄16 in.

detail_Ambassadeurs, Aristide Bruant

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Ambassadeurs, Aristide Bruant (detail), 1892. Brush and spatter lithograph, printed in five colors. Key stone printed in olive green, color stones in orange, red, blue and black on two sheets of wove paper, 52 15⁄16 × 36 5⁄8 in. Private collection

 

Images at top, from left to right: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge, La Goulue, 1891. Brush and spatter lithograph, printed in four colors. Key stone printed in black, color stones in yellow, red, and blue on three sheets of wove paper, 75 3⁄16 × 46 1⁄6 in. Private collection; Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Simpson Chain, 1896. Brush, crayon, and spatter lithograph, printed in three colors. Key stone printed in blue, color stones in red and yellow on wove paper, 32 5⁄8 × 47 1/4 in. Private Collection; Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril, 1893. Brush and spatter lithograph, printed in five colors. Key stone printed in olive green, color stones in yellow, orange, red, and black on wove paper, 48 13⁄16 × 36 in. Private collection

July #Phillips95 Challenge: Dream Big

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Marc Chagall, The Dream, 1939. Gouache on paper, 20 9/16 x 26 3/4 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1942

This month’s #Phillips95 challenge celebrates Marc Chagall. Chagall was known for his highly expressionist and colorful paintings that combined elements of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism. He saw his work as “not the dream of one people but of all humanity.” While scholars have written endless volumes on him, we’re looking to you to simplify things!

YOUR CHALLENGE: When you look at The Dream, what is the one word that comes to mind? Comment on this blog post or any of our social media posts with one word you think best encapsulates the painting and be entered into a drawing to win a Phillips prize pack (including two tickets to the museum and goodies from the museum shop!).