Art and Design
The Google doodle dedicated to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Photo: Google
Post-impressionist artist and icon of bohemian Paris, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was memorialised yesterday with a Google doodle, 150 years after his birth. Replicas of his work adorn hotels, restaurants and student sharehouses the world over. Who was he and why is he still so popular? 1. You already know him, if you've seen Moulin Rouge!
Equal parts party animal and artist, Toulouse-Lautrec was depicted by John Leguizamo in Baz Lurhmann's 2001 epic Moulin Rouge! starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor.
Visitors to the National Gallery of Australia look at the work La Goulue entering the Moulin Rouge during Toulouse Lautrec exhibition. Photo: Jeffrey Chan
Toulouse-Lautrec's character introduces the newcomer (McGregor) to the Montmarte quarter in Paris, a place known for its brothels, artists and seedy underbelly, a place where he is very much part of the furniture.
Toulouse-Lautrec was also a character in John Huston's 1952 Moulin Rouge played by Jose Ferrer.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's The sofa [Le sofa] c.1894-96. 2. Toulouse-Lautrec took up art because he had a disability
Born in Midi-Pyrénées region of France, the artist suffered growth problems that prevented his legs from developing past childhood and playing sport. As a result he immersed himself in art, studying under the portrait painter Leon Bonnat, whose studio was in Montmarte.
It was here that Lautrec was introduced to such artists as Vincent Van Gough and Emile Bernard, and where he developed a taste for the nightlife. 3. He was the greatest poster designer of all time
Two years ago, a major exhibition of rarely seen pieces by Toulouse-Lautrec was shown at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. Many of his works depicting singers, nightclubs, cafes and prostitutes were designed as posters, ephemera, that people took home and kept, thus preserving them.
Director of the gallery at the time, Ron Radford was full of praise for Toulouse-Lautrec.
French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
'He was the greatest poster designer of all time,' Radford said.
'He died in the same year as Australian Federation as a famous modern artist and has influenced contemporary art since.'
His focus on advertising and celebrity is echoed, critics have said, by Andy Warhol 60 years later.
Jose Ferrer as the famed painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in John Huston's 1952 film Moulin Rouge. 4. Toulouse-Lautrec became the confidant of the sex workers he painted
The artist spent a lot of his time in brothels, sometimes weeks on end where he was accepted by madams and brothel workers. It is said he gave painting lessons to one of his subjects, Suzanne Valadone.
'He shared the lives of the women who made him their confidant, painting and drawing them at work and at leisure. Lautrec recorded their intimate relationships, which were often lesbian,' the Toulouse-Lautrec Foundation's website says. 5. He invented a (green) drink
Toulouse-Lautrec's legacy to the world of cocktails is a potent mixture containing half absinthe and half cognac called Tremblement de Terre. Absinthe, or the green fairy, is a major motif in Baz Lurhmann's Moulin Rouge! 6. Toulouse-Lautrec died of his own excess
The artist was an alcoholic for most of his life and died of the disease, along with syphilis, at his family's large estate in Malrome at the age of 36. Toulouse-Lautrec's last words reportedly were: 'Le vieux con!' ('Old fool!') Follow Entertainment on Twitter
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