The extraordinary activity of Toulouse-Lautrec in the Bohemian world of Paris marked an epoch and left an indelible trace throughout the entire history of art and culture of the 20th century.

When Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec moved to Paris, he soon became a real chronicler of Parisian life. He was a painter who captured the exhilarating society of le demi-monde and its establishments: racecourses, circus tents, theatres and opera houses, cabarets and brothels that became his ateliers.

In only ten years, up to his death in 1901, he produced 368 prints and litograph posters, which he considered of equal importance to his paintings and drawings. When Toulouse-Lautrec started to experiment with lithography, his contemporaries, well-known artists like Alfons Mucha and Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen did so as well, and they too succeeded in creating true masterpieces. During their lifetimes, and because of their work, lithographs and posters were elevated from the status of mere mass advertising media to an accepted artistic genre.

Text in English and Italian.