Toulouse-Lautrec and Bohemian Paris
3 June 2027 at 09:30:00
Moor Park Mansion, Rickmansworth
Booking closes
20 May 2027
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: Marcelle Lender Dancing the Bolero in “Chilpéric”, oil on canvas 1895-6
BOOKING FOR THIS EVENT IS EXPECTED TO OPEN IN JANUARY 2027
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa was born in Albi in the south of France on 24 November 1864, the scion of a proud aristocratic family, but childhood illness and injuries prevented him from undertaking the customary aristocratic rural vocations. We begin by exploring the world of the young Henri, his parents and family life, and learn about the impact of his physical disorder, his early talent as an artist and his seminal move to Paris as a teenager to study art.
We then venture deep into Bohemian Paris and the Montmartre demi-monde where Henri came to feel most at home. We’ll hear how Montmartre in the 1890s became the centre of French popular culture, learn about its exotic places of entertainment, its seedy dance halls, café-cabarets, bars and brothels, and meet some notable ‘Bohemians’.
Finally we will discover how Henri came to make both it and himself famous, turning the advertising poster into an art form and creating works of remarkable insight and sensitivity. His tragic early death at the age of 36 arguably robbed us of the greatest modern master of his period.
Our Speaker
Martin Heard
Martin Heard
After studying History of Art at Manchester University Martin spent three years in the editorial department of a fine art publishing company. His later career took a detour into the world of information technology, during which time he had the opportunity to live and work for several years in both continental Europe and North America.
Having 'retired' from this field of endeavour Martin now devotes his time to lecturing and researching, mainly English and French eighteenth and late nineteenth century art and architecture, and European garden history from the medieval period to that of the great landscape gardeners, Capability Brown and Humphry Repton.