Tag Archives: posters

Performers of the Belle Époque: Yvette Guilbert

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Each week for the duration of the exhibition, we’ll focus on one work of art from Toulouse-Lautrec Illustrates the Belle Époque, on view Feb. 4 through April 30, 2017.

Yvette Guilbert

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Yvette Guilbert, 1893. Brush and crayon lithograph, printed in brownish black on wove paper. Only state, regular edition, from Le Café Concert album, Paris: L’Estampe originale. Private collection

Pictured here, Yvette Guilbert had a vocal style, unusual physical appearance, and celebrated comic timing that won her international celebrity. She sang songs by poets and writers that tackled themes of death, sex, and poverty. She relied on humor to soften “all the indecencies, all the excesses, all the vices of my contemporaries, and to enable them to laugh at themselves.”

Can You Find the Toulouse-Lautrec Work In This Picasso?

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Each week for the duration of the exhibition, we’ll focus on one work of art from Toulouse-Lautrec Illustrates the Belle Époque, on view Feb. 4 through April 30, 2017.

May Milton_Toulouse-Lautrec

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

Toulouse-Lautrec immortalized English dancer May Milton in this commission, which was meant to advertise a US tour that never occurred. A preparatory drawing reveals the creative impulse. For the poster, Toulouse-Lautrec used five colors, saturating the background in blue and using the white of the paper to define Milton’s body. A swirling pattern highlights the underside of her dress. The poster is shown here with a rare trial proof printed in olive green and black, one of only four impressions.

Picasso must have known of the work, because it is incorporated in his painting The Blue Room. Can you spot it below?

picasso_blue-room

Pablo Picasso, The Blue Room, 1901. Oil on canvas, 19 7/8 x 24 1/4 in. Acquired 1927. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; © 2015 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Aritsts Rights Society (ARS), New York

The View From Here

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Each week for the duration of the exhibition, we’ll focus on one work of art from Toulouse-Lautrec Illustrates the Belle Époque, on view Feb. 4 through April 30, 2017.

Box with the Gilded Mask_Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Box with the Gilded Mask, about 1894. Crayon, brush, and spatter lithograph with scraper, printed in five colors. Key stone printed in olive green, color stones in red or brown-red, yellow, gray-beige, and black-olive green or black on imitation Japan paper. Only state, 14 5⁄8 × 12 7⁄8 in. Private collection

Lautrec drew an admirable program in colors for which collectors will fight someday. —André Antoine

Toulouse-Lautrec’s lasting affiliation with avant-garde theater began in 1893, when he received a commission to design programs for André Antoine’s company, Théâtre Libre. This is the program design for Le Missionnaire by Marcel Luguet, printed without text, a format intended for collectors. Rather than depict a scene from the play, Toulouse-Lautrec focused on the theater box, a private space for the affluent in which to withdraw into the shadows or let themselves be seen. It shows Jane Avril, engaged in the performance, with artist Charles Condor. Like Edgar Degas’s pastel La Loge, this print is seen from a low vantage point. Two preparatory sketches for the lithograph are known.