Art and History Talks date TBA: The Life and Times of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Date: Date TBA

Location: Salón de Actos, Espai la Senieta, Moraira (next to the large free car park)

Subject: The Life and Times of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Lecturer: Brian Nicholls

 

This is a revised talk of one I gave several years ago. Lautrec was born into one of only 14 Aristocratic  families who survived the French Revolution. At that time, so anxious were these families to preserve their social status,that marriage between cousins was commonplace. Little was evidently known about the genetic dangers of inter breeding and when Henri, as a child, had a bad accident, the consequences were catastrophic, and left him in a state of dwarfism for the rest of his life. There were several physical changes the most serious of which was the suspension in growth of his legs from the age of 12.

Although his mother continued to support him, emotionally and financially, his father rejected him simply because poor Henri did not fit his ideal of a hunting, shooting, fishing, only son of a privileged family.

Henri turned to art and was to bestow upon the world, not only some memorable paintings, etching and collages, but also a visual, and often explicit, record of the intimacies of life in the Montmartre district of Paris in the last years of the 19th century.  

Brian Nicholls