Toulouse-Lautrec, Composition, The Circus by Toulouse-Lautrec (after)
1952

$716List Price

About the Item

Medium: Lithograph on vélin paper Year: 1952 Paper Size: 12.125 x 9.25 inches Inscription: Signed in the plate and unnumbered, as issued Notes: From the album, The Circus by Toulouse-Lautrec, 1952. Published the Paris Book Center, Inc., New York, in conjunction with Éditions André Sauret, Monte-Carlo; printed by Mourlot Frères, Paris, 1952. Excerpted from the album, This edition of The Circus of Toulouse-Lautrec has been realized and published for Paris Book Center Inc. of New York, under the direction and supervision of André Sauret at the presses of Fernand Mourlot in Paris. There has been published of this English edition of The Circus by Toulouse-Lautrec, MD examples numbered from I to MD. In addition there has been printed XX examples on Imperial Japon Paper, numbered from I to XX, L examples on Special Vélin numbered XXI to LXX. From early childhood Toulouse-Lautrec was attracted by the circus. It was, in fact, through a friend of his family, René Princeteau, himself a painter, that he acquired this taste while still very young. Princeteau was a painter of horses and their riders, both men and women, and he exerted quite an influence on Lautrec's early education. Despite the great difference in their ages, they got along splendidly and the circus became their favorite form of enter-tainment. Later, Lautrec paid frequent visits to the Molier and Fernando circuses as well as to the Nouveau Cirque. His strange silhouette with its long torso set on over-short legs could be seen standing close to the "rail" during training periods, or later, loafing about in the corridors. His retentive memory noted everything : the movements of the horses and their riders, the acrobats, the facial expressions of the clowns, an entire world of its own intensely alive and, for him, fascinating. He took few rough notes and only occasionally made a quick drawing of the grimaces of the famous clown, Footitt, whose sketches with the negro " Chocolat" as partner attracted the whole of Paris to the Nouveau Cirque. Lautrec had met Footitt, whom he admired very much, in a bar in the Rue Royale and, for a while, he used to go there to join him. But although Lautrec liked the spectacle of the circus, he also liked to go to bars and cafés, with the result that, at the beginning of the year 1899 he gave evidence of mental disorders. There were those who insisted even that he was mad; but this was not the case. He was seized with occasional fits of hallucination, following upon long moments of lucidity. His friend, Arsène Alexandre, said of him: " This strange, daring little man descended into Hell, but he came out of it with his own fur singed; for a time, alcohol, loathsome alcohol, ravaged the painter as it had his models". With the approval of his doctor, and to calm Lautrec's nerves, a plan was envisaged to send him on a voyage to Japan. In the end, however, he went to Doctor Semelaigne's nursing-home in Neuilly. This eighteenth-century house, called originally "Folie Saint-James", proved to be very hospitable. But Lautrec did not remain inactive. His solitude weighed on him, in addition to which he was determined to prove that his mind was not really affected. He asked for pencils and paper, and soon his room was transformed into a studio. Unfortunately, models were few, the house attendants being so very different from the creatures that peopled Montmartre. Should he return to his usual subjects? He had already portrayed too many bars and houses of ill-fame. It was here that he decided to depict the circus scenes that had always struck his fancy. So he set to work. It has been thought that at this period he worked from memory. This is undoubtedly true as regards the drawings in which Footitt, "Chocolat" and the woman-clown Cha-U-Kao are to be seen. But it is also possible, as M. Adhémar believes, that he executed others from nature. The explanation is a simple one : Lautrec's condition having rapidly improved, he was soon allowed to go out with an attendant. As it happened, the Molier circus, in the Rue Bénouville, was not far from Lautrec's nursing-home. He was surely accompanied. But he was able to sketch from life while the troupe was practising or, at least, return to the nursing-home and set down immediately what he had just seen. In many of these subjects it will, in fact, be noted that the benches are empty, as during a rehearsal, and those of the drawings that reproduce the riding exercices engaged in by Molier's pupils, Blanche Allarty and Anna Bradbury, show extraordinary precision. This fact was already noted by Maurice Joyant. In any case, Lautrec succeed in constituting little by little a complete series of thirty-nine drawings in black and colored crayons, all of which show great mastery and are in no way the work of a mad-man. All they show are certain exaggerations of proportion, but this is a question of artistic deformation and proves, as Miss Mongan has emphasized, "the integrity of his painter's faculties.” Lautrec set down the things that struck him with a humour that was all his own : the gentle movement of a rider's skirt, while the big horse continues to gallop peacefully around the arena; trained dogs, especially poodles, being drilled by a clown armed with a whip; or acrobats, so skillful and so true to stock, risking their lives for the public. Most of these drawings as, for instance, "the rearing horse," "the jockey,” and “the animal-trainer", are masterpieces of composition and movement. They denote an aristocratic vision of the circus that is quite different from that expressed by Rouault, a little later (I). The colored pencil which, in an awkward hand, can produce such weak effects, is used here with supreme freedom of movement. Lautrec uses too, occasionally, a china-ink wash as, for example, in the "negro playing the banjo". However, once these drawings were finished, Lautrec, who had also completed several lithographs, began to be bored, and took a general dislike for his fellow-patients whom he termed "too dis-gusting". Friends who called to see him, expecting to find him haggard and barely able to speak, now found themselves in the presence of a little man with a keen eye and a generally relaxed expression. His condition having shown regular improvement, he was therefore released. He was to retain, in fact, a rather pleasant memory of his stay at Saint-James. Alas, however, his taste for alcohol soon returned, dominating his entire existence. Meanwhile, what became of the drawings? Lautrec gave one, "the trainer-clown", to his friend Arsène Alexandre, with the following inscription, "Madrid, Easter 1899, to Arsène Alexandre. Later, a German named Heinrich Stahl, acquired this same drawing. As regards the thirty-eight others, Lautrec gave them away quite as generously to his close friend, Maurice Joyant, of whom he also made an excellent portrait in hunting costume. When Joyant died these drawings constituted part of his estate. A French art-patron, who bought them around I93I was obliged to part with all but three shortly afterwards. Finally, the majority were taken to America by the well-known art dealer, Knoedler, who disposed of them separately. However, in the early nineteen-hundreds Maurice Joyant, who was impressed by the high quality of this series of drawings, contracted with the printer Manzi for reproduction of twenty-two of them in intaglio-heliogravure, and an album was brought out in 1900s. Then, in view of the success of this early volume, a plan to make known to the public the remaining seventeen was set afoot. Owing to the efforts of Madame Dortu, Maurice Joyant's heir, a second album was published in 1932. The reproductions, this time by Daniel Jacomet, were made from phototype plates and colored by hand. Both these volumes have now become very rare. Today, in 1953 - and the interest that attaches to this event is only too evident - we are indebted to the publisher André Sauret, for finally being able to compile in this one volume, the thirty-nine drawings that compose the series " The Circus". Here the reproductions were made by the lithographer, Fernand Mourlot, whose mastery of the colored lithograph is once more manifested. The "pungency" of the lithographic process is indeed perfectly suited to the requirements of these drawings, and restores as well the spirit of Lautrec's works. —Charles PERUSSAUX, Attaché au Cabinet des Estampes de la Bibliothèque Nationale. TOULOUSE-LAUTREC (1864-1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century allowed him to produce a collection of enticing, elegant, and provocative images of the sometimes decadent affairs of those times. Born into the aristocracy, Toulouse-Lautrec broke both his legs around the time of his adolescence and, due to the rare condition pycnodysostosis, was very short as an adult due to his undersized legs. In addition to his alcoholism, he developed an affinity for brothels and prostitutes that directed the subject matter for many of his works recording many details of the late-19th-century bohemian lifestyle in Paris. Toulouse-Lautrec is among the painters described as being Post-Impressionists, with Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Georges Seurat also commonly considered as belonging in this loose group. He influenced generations of artists including Picasso who had traveled to Paris where he at first imitated Toulouse-Lautrec's style.

Creation Year:
1952
Dimensions:
Height: 12.125 in (30.8 cm)Width: 9.25 in (23.5 cm)
Medium:
Lithograph
Movement Style:
Post-Impressionist
After:
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 - 1901, French)
Period:
1950-1959
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Fairfield, CT
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU1342116161292

Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Jean-Pierre Cassigneul
Femme a l ombrelle, 1972

$2,800

H 36.15 in W 28.25 in D 1 in

Murmures

By Jean-Pierre Cassigneul

Located in San Francisco, CA

This art work titled "Murmures" 1989 is an original color lithograph on wove paper by French artist, Jean Pierre Cassigneul, born 1935. It is hand signed and inscribed E.A (Artist Proof) in pencil by the artist. Referenced and pictured in the artist's catalogue raisonne by Mazo. plate #31. The image size is 23.80 x 30 inches, framed size is 39.25 x 44.5 inches. Custom framed in a wooden gold frame, with fabric matting and gold color spacer. It is in excellent condition. About the artist: Jean-Pierre Cassigneul is a French painter known for his serene portraits of women in hats that recall the French Post-Impressionist avant-garde, including the works of Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. He was born on July 13, 1935, in Paris. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and went on to exhibit in various group exhibitions, including the Salon d' Automne in Paris (of which he was member), the Salon de la Jeune Peinture, He exhibited at the Beaubourg Center in Paris in 1977 and solo as of 1952, on a regular basis in France but also in New York, and Tokyo and worldwide Jean PierreCassigneul is known for his charming and extremely popular Van Dongen-influenced paintings of women in floral hats, complete with frequent allusions to other aspects of the Années Folles. 1952 First private exhibition at the Galerie Lucy Kroge in Paris aged 17. 1954 Enters into the Académie Charpentier and then decides to study under Jean Souverbie at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris. 1955 He passes his entrance exam a year later and enrolls at the "Ecole Nationale Superieure" des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Works in Chapelain-Midy’s studio. 1958 First exhibition at the Galerie des Beaux-Arts. 1959 Appointed member of the Salon d’Automne. 1956–1960 Instructed by the French painter Roger Chapelain-Midy. 1963 Present at the Salon de la Jeune Peinture for the first time. 1964 Private exhibition at the Galerie Tivey-Faucon, Paris. Meets Kiyoshi Tamenaga, who becomes his art dealer for Japan. 1965 Creation of his first lithographic works. Exhibition at the Galerie Bellechasse, Paris. 1966 Present at the International Exhibition of Figurative Art, Tokyo. Exhibition at the Galerie Bellechasse, Paris. 1968 Exhibition at the Galerie Juarez in Palm Beach, USA. Private exhibition at la Galerie Vital, Paris. 1969 Exhibition of lithographic works at the Mitsukoshi Gallery, Tokyo. 1970 January : Exhibition at the Wally Findlay Gallery, Palm Beach, then in New York. First trip to Japan, where he stays for three months. Important private exhibition at the Mitsukoshi Gallery, Tokyo. 1973 Exhibition at the Wally Findlay Gallery in Palm Beach, then in New York. Private exhibition at the Tamenaga Gallery, Tokyo. Meets art publisher Alain Mazo. 1974 Private exhibition at the Galerie Wally Findlay, Paris, then in New York. 1975 Exhibition at the Wally Findlay Gallery, New York. 1976 Private exhibition at the Mitsukoshi Gallery, Tokyo. Publication of the album “Parcs” by Editions Mazo-Paris. 1977 June : Private exhibition at the Galerie René Kieffer, Paris Private show of paintings and pastels at the Galerie Wally Findlay, Paris. 1978 Retrospective exhibition of lithographic works at Vision Nouvelle. June-July : Exhibition at the Wally Findlay Gallery, New York. Important private showat the Mitsukoshi Gallery, Tokyo. 1980 Designs his first tapestry, executed by Atelier 3...

Category

Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Jean-Pierre Cassigneul
Murmures, 1989

$3,850

$2,827 Sale Price

30% Off

H 25.6 in W 35.44 in D 0.04 in

Maison Natale de Colette - Lithograph by Luc-Albert Moreau - Early 20th Century

By Luc-Albert Moreau

Located in Roma, IT

Maison Natale de Colette is a Lithograph on ivory-colored paper realized by Luc Albert Moreau. The artwork is in good condition. Hand-signature on the lower right corner, numbered ...

Category