|
Indepth Arts News:
"Toulouse Lautrec: The Baldwin M. Baldwin Collection"
1999-10-16 until 2000-01-02
Glenbow
Calgary, ,
CA Canada
The only surviving son of the count of Toulouse-Lautrec, his family
heritage was enveloped in nobility and aristocratic ideals. As
Lautrec's life crossed between traditional class divisions, it was the
very contrast of his past against the rather more underground world
of Montmartre - a world which included poverty, suffering, and
exploitation - which formed the subjects of his art. His vision is one
that bears a certain frankness and irreverence which is still striking
today.
Toulouse-Lautrec's posters done during the last decade of his
career - Moulin Rouge-La Goulue, 1891, and the equally well-known
images of theatrical performer Aristide Bruant, 1892 - were among
the first of his commercial successes which, according to some of his
biographers, brought him fame practically overnight. Plastered
throughout the streets of Paris, these image advertised the
night-life of Paris's Montmartre district with its bars, theatres,
cabarets, and brothels - all subjects that captivated the artist's
imagination. Stunning in their dramatic use of colour, simplicity of
composition, thick use of line, and bold use of hand-written
typography, these images are among the most extraordinary
examples of graphic art of the era.
Although the Baldwin M. Baldwin Collection focuses on Lautrec's
lithographs, for Lautrec, there was no hierarchy of importance
between his prints, drawings, and paintings. Of more significance
was the relationship between the three media, and Lautrec often
exhibited prints alongside his paintings in public exhibitions. In his
role as a printmaker he contributed to the rising interest in
printmaking, challenging the predominance of painting and
sculpture in European art. As with many printmakers of his
generation, Lautrec s art was appreciated by a wide public
through the commercial circulation of his prints and posters.
Toulouse-Lautrec: The Baldwin M. Baldwin Collection was formed in
1987 when 95 works, mainly graphics, were gifted to the San
Diego Museum of Art by the Baldwin family. The exhibit is
complemented by some 14 images from the San Diego collection
which include several of his drawings and two paintings. The show
explores various facets of his commercial art - illustrations and
posters for songs, menus, theatre programs, books, journals,
plays, art exhibits, and theatre stars. As this exhibition shows,
Lautrec was a painter of people, but not in the traditional sense of portraiture. His concern
was more about the body - people in action and in moments and poses where they were not
likely aware of being depicted.
The show provides evidence of the unparalleled exchange of art and ideas from around the
world, including Japanese art then being circulated in the Parisian art world. For
Toulouse-Lautrec, the tilted perspectives, odd profiles of people in unstaged positions, and his
non-traditional compositions, are among the concepts he absorbed from Japanese prints.
Perhaps most importantly, this exhibition offers a unique chance to view work by one of the
most intriguing personalities at the turn of the last century and to compare his vision of the
1890s with that of our own time.
Related Links:
| | 
|
