Icon of the month

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Anyone for coffee?

Unlike his contemporaries, Toulouse-Lautrec enjoyed some mortal success. His thick lines and flat bold colours – inspired by Japanese woodcuts – made fine bedfellows for new lithographic technology, and his reputation as one of the first great poster artists flourished. His oil paintings employed the same lines, coupled with masterly brushwork to convey the seedy sparkle of his subjects.

“I may only be a small coffee pot, but I have a big spout”

Living in Montmartre, Toulouse-Lautrec sketched the bohemian life that surrounded him: cabaret dancers, prostitutes and inebriates all featured.

The artist had broken both legs as a teenager and a congenital disorder stopped the bones from healing properly. Thus his legs stopped growing while his torso developed to normal proportions. Toulouse-Lautrec drank to excess in response to this physical deformity and was also an inveterate skirt chaser – passions that drew an alcoholic, syphilitic death aged just 36.

Toulouse-Lautrec only grew to a height of 4ft 11in. Some have suggested that years of inbreeding by his aristocratic heirs (his parents were cousins) caused the genetic disease that stunted his growth. He seemed unperturbed, oftencommenting: “I may only be a small coffee pot, but I have a big spout”.