Toulouse-Lautrec

In our imaginings of Paris, painter and graphic artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) has no small role to play. In his prints, posters, paintings, and drawings, the artist immortalized the city’s Belle Époque nightlife and put the northern neighborhood of Montmartre on the global map of creative-hedonist hotspots.

The son of old French nobility, Toulouse-Lautrec seems to have been drawn early on to visions of a demimonde, centering his attention on the dance halls, cabarets, and bro...