Explores Toulouse-Lautrec's art as a printmaker
Unique perspective on the role of the poster and wider print distribution as a tool for communication and marketing
How Toulouse-Lautrec's art helped to define and promote specific Paris hotspots of the belle époque and created the concept of celebrity status across Paris
Accompanies an exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland in October 2018
This book offers a beautiful exploration of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s works in lithography. It explores the new artistic approach to the poster at the end of the 19th century, which bridged visual and popular culture and turned the relationship between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art on its head. Technical innovations in lithography pioneered by Lautrec and other artists produced larger sizes, more varied colours and new effects and launched the role of the poster as a powerful tool for communication and marketing in fin de siècle Paris. Lautrec’s embrace of celebrity helped to define the famous hotspots (theatres, cabarets and café-concerts) of fin de siècle Paris and made their stars recognisable figures across the whole city.
Works by contemporaries such as Pierre Bonnard, Théophile Alexandre Steinlen and Jules Chéret also feature, and Lautrec's influence on British, and particularly Scottish, artists of the period will be explored. These include Walter Richard Sickert, Arthur Melville, John Duncan Fergusson, and William Nicholson.
An exhibition of this work, directly tied to the content of the book, will open at the National Galleries of Scotland on 6th October 2018.