Today I paid a visit to the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition at Somerset House, which is on until 18th September 2011. The exhibition explores the work of artist Henri de Toulouse-Latrec and his muse and dancer Jane Avril. Toulouse-Latrec gained fame with his evocative paintings and posters of Parisian nightlife featuring dancers and singers of the famous Moulin Rouge. He sought to capture their expressions, gestures, dress and movements through sketches, paintings and lithographs.
Instantly recognisable by her vivid auburn hair and her alluring persona, Jane Avril propelled to instant stardom following the popularity of his striking posters. Both a close friend of the artist, and a renowned figure in his work, their partnership came to define the world of the Moulin Rouge.
The exhibition at The Courtauld carefully puts together study sketches, showing a quick economic use of line and finished paintings and posters, with fluid brushstrokes. In the vibrant paintings he perfectly depicts Jane Avril’s distinctive character, with dancing, kicking legs and wild revealing dresses. She was diagnosed with the movement disorder ‘St Vitus’ dance’, which caused her dance to take on an erratic movement, recalling to mind the images of nervous contractions that proliferated at the time in Paris. Placed next to these celebrated paintings are lesser-known studies capturing the dancer off-stage, as a private person, with hunched up shoulders, walking unrecognisable down the street and sipping coffee in his studio. The exhibition offers a view behind the public persona of this famous performer, revealing both the spectacle of bohemian Paris in the 1890s, and the close partnership between two very talented artists.
At the Moulin Rouge by Toulouse-Lautrec
Portrait of Jane Avril, by Toulouse-Lautrec 1892
Jane Avril at the Moulin Rouge
Jane Avril in the Entrance to the Moulin Rouge, by Toulouse-Lautrec 1892
Jane Avril Leaving the Moulin Rouge
Jardin de Paris: Jane Avril by Toulouse-Lautrec
