A special exhibition “Toulouse-Lautrec's Paris” will start at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park on July 11. Some museum veterans might be inclined to say the collection will come home. While San Diego is fortunate to have one of the world’s largest collections of original works by Lautrec, the collection has been on a world tour that has helped make Toulouse-Lautrec recognized as a master who raised commercial illustration to a fine art. This will be the first exhibition of the collection in San Diego in twenty years.
A short sample of the many special exhibitions which featured Lautrec works from the San Diego Museum of Art will give you an idea of his world wide appeal:
“Hommage a Toulouse-Lautrec” held Nov 15 2002 to Feb 2, 2003 at the Copenhagen Museum of Design in Denmark. “La Belle Epoque and Toulouse-Lautrec” at the Nassau County Museum of Art in New York in the summer of 2003. “Toulouse Lautrec and Montmartre” in 2005 at both the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and the trendsetting Art Institute of Chicago.”
Lautrec’s artisitic talent has helped his work gain international recognition. But his choice of subjects and locations have made the work legendary: the Paris of the Moulin Rouge, melodious chanteauses and the audiences they enchanted, and countless ordinary Frenchmen who became extraordinary simply by association with the effervescent world of Paris in the late nineteenth century. Art historians often refer to Lautrec’s work as post-Impressionist, a style that applies the creativity and artistic license of impressionism and also incorporates elements of realism and strong images of subjects to accommodate a generation that relied on photographs to portray the world.
Lautrec competed successfully with the best photographers and illustrators of his day by exaggerating colors just enough to capture attention without passing the boundaries of impossibility. The red hair of singing sensation Jane Avril is a shade brighter than Lucille Ball’s choice of dye. The red scarf of cabaret entertainer Aristide Bruant is bright enough to create the effect of a spotlight.
San Diegans will have to wait two more months to see “Toulouse-Lautrec's Paris.” But many books about this talented artist are available now and can help you get the most out of the exhibition. Some reader favorites are: “Posters of the Belle Epoque: The Wine Spectator Collection,” “Toulouse-Lautrec: the Moulin Rouge and the City of Light,” and the official exhibition catalog for “Toulouse Lautrec and Montmartre.” The exhibition will continue through December 12, so now may be a good time to get an annual membership to the San Diego Museum of Art with unlimited admission. If you are on a budget, the Museum is free for San Diego County residents on the third Tuesday of each month.
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