Toulouse-Lautrec Henri-Marie-Raymond de

Henri-Marie-Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 - 9 September 1901), French painter.

He was born in an aristocratic family, as the sole son and heir of the Count Alphonse-Charles de Toulouse, being the last descendent of a family with a history of nearly a millenium. His father was rich and rather eccentric, while his mother was a sensible and tender woman, who chose to dedicate herself to her child. But Henri was a sickly and weak child, who started painting and drawing when he was ten, to escape to loneliness. At the age of twelve he broke his left leg, in a minor accident, and two years later he broke the right one. His bones failed to heal properly, so later he would be a grown-up man, with a normal body and short and difformed legs. He was merely 1.5 meters tall.

He had to live like this, and having to renounce all the pleasures of a normal life, Toulouse-Lautrec chose art. And he would dedicate himself to it completely. He therefore to Montmartre, the famous bohemian and cultural quarter of Paris, where he discovered the sources of inspiration for his works : cabarets, nightclubs, dance halls, horse races. It was a world in which he was a mere spectator, but also a world which fascinated him, so he created a great number of drawings, litographs and paintings. He prefered staying aside, at a dark table, where he drank and quickly produced sketches of what he saw. Even if he was a pleasant company, he wanted to be left alone, being very sensible to any bad joke about his appearance. It seems that he started drinking more and more because of such jokes, as he was really hurt by any innuendo or irony.

After finishing several sketches, he would then return to the studio where he transformed these into elaborate canvases.

In order to adapt and forget about his handicap, he started drinking more and more, and eventually he was committed to a sanatorium, then taken home, where his mother watched over him. Despite the doctor's interdiction, he couldn't give up drinking, and died at his family's chateau in Malrome. After his death his paintings and especially his prints became more and more popular, and were sold at much higher prices.

 

 

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