Toulouse-Lautrec Scarf

Description

Our Toulouse-Lautrec Scarf is based on some of the artist’s bold Montmartre inspired lithographs. During the 1890s, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901) virtually reinvented lithography, a printmaking medium that had been introduced in France a century earlier. His famed posters and prints, made to publicize Parisian performers and nightspots, including the Moulin Rouge, demonstrate Lautrec’s dramatically expressive command of the lithographic medium, which he placed in the service of the popular press and the Parisian entertainment industry.

Silk satin. Imported. 64'' x 14''.

Art History

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901) was particularly drawn to the diversity of the Moulin Rouge's audience, relying on recognizable Monmartrois types—the cancan dancer, the young working-class woman, the bourgeois man—to convey both the sexual freedom and the spectacle associated with the quarter. Combining commercial advertising techniques with avant- garde compositions characterized by cut-off angles, simplified silhouettes, and flat areas of pure color, he created bold and vivid lithographs of Montmartre's most celebrated performers. Employing methods of caricature with a rapid execution, he exposed the artificiality, anxiety, and social tension that characterized fin-de-siècle Parisian society.