Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de (Toulouse-Lautrec Henri de)

(1864-1901)
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-MPSF born in Albi, November 24, 1864. Belonged to one of the most ancient aristocratic families of France. In adolescence, broke both his legs and he was left a cripple. Unable to keep to the traditional lifestyle of a provincial nobleman, decided to devote himself to painting. In 1882 Toulouse-Lautrec studied in Paris with Leon Bonn and Fernand Cormon, but both teachers were very committed to academicism and did not have a strong influence on his artistic formation. Lautrec liked the bold, expressive angularity of works by Degas and flattened perspective and linearity of Japanese prints, based on these sources, he created his own original style.
In 1884-1885 Lautrec moved to Montmartre, which was then the center of artistic life in Paris, where he lived until almost the end of days. Here he found the subjects for the majority of works: cabarets and dance halls ( 'Sofa Zhapone', . 'Moulin de la Galette' and especially 'Moulin Rouge'); among his models were the dancer La Goulue, and Jean Avril, . singer and songwriter Aristide Bruant, . singer Yvette Guilbert, and many others,
. Lautrec left behind a huge legacy. He created a set of color drawings, . devoted to the circus and circus, . drawings and lithographs depicting bicyclists, . jockeys and other athletes, . portraits of famous actors and actresses, . including Sarah Bernhardt, . and the famous series of paintings on the theme, . related to the Parisian brothels and the lives of their occupants,
. Toulouse-Lautrec one of the first seriously engaged in creating billboards, he raised the genre of an advertising poster to the level of high art.

From early youth, Toulouse-Lautrec drank a lot; dissolute lifestyle, intense, focused work and many hours spent without sleep, quickly undermined his already weak health. Toulouse-Lautrec died from paralysis in one of the family estates near Bordeaux on Sept. 9, 1901.