Biography
Biography
He was born into aristocracy, in the south of France, on 24th November 1864. His younger brother passed away in 1868, and his parents separated soon after, leaving him to be cared for by a nanny. He started staying with his mother around the age of eight, and was given informal lessons in art by René Princeteau, a friend of his father’s.
It is generally considered that his many health issues were a result of inbreeding, since his parents were first cousins. This contributed to his weak bones, leading to him breaking both his legs from the ages of thirteen to fourteen. Toulouse-Lautrec’s legs stopped growing, then, and he retained child-sized legs while the rest of his body grew.
Throughout his life, his progress and the fulfillment of his ambitions was sponsored and enabled by his mother, who through her aristocratic connections, acquired him a position in Léon Bonnat’s studio, and after Bonnat took a new job, the studio of Fernand Cormon in 1882. His mother was the one who pushed him forward, due to the high ambitions she had of him becoming a fashionable ad respected painter.
The basis of his iconic style, and the trend of his chosen subjects, was created while he was studying under Cormon. He made the greatest friends of his life there, who remained his friends throughout his lifetime. It was here that he developed his post-impressionist style, and where he had his first encounter with prostitutes, who went on to become the subject of the majority of his work from here on.
His rise to fame began in 1885, when his work was exhibited at Aristide Bruant’s Mirliton, and then in 1888 when his work was exhibited at the Vingt exhibition in Brussels.
In 1885, he met Suzanne Valadon, an artist whom he supported, and with whom it is theorized he was in a relationship with, though ultimately it came to naught with her suicide in 1888.
It was with his rise to fame and the suicide of Valadon that he started down the path of alcoholism.
Throughout his life he was mocked and ridiculed for his short legs and strange appearance. This most likely contributed to his alcoholism. It is generally accepted that Toulouse-Lautrec never had any romantic relationships, and his only sexual ones were with prostitues. Édouard Vuillard said on the subject: "the real reasons for his behaviour were moral ones … Lautrec was too proud to submit to his lot, as a physical freak, an aristocrat cut off from his kind by his grotesque appearance. He found an affinity between his condition and the moral penury of the prostitute." And Toulouse-Lautrec himself said: "I have found girls of my own size! Nowhere else do I feel so much at home."
He was a friend of Oscar Wilde, and was a vocal supporter of his when he faced imprisonment.
His cane, which he used as a mobility aid, was hollow, and kept filled with liquor. He is attributed with inventing the Tremblement De Terre, a mixture of cognac and absinthe.
He died in 9th September 1901, when he was 36, from a series of increasingly intense strokes. His last words were “The old fool!”, which was addressed to his father, who was killing a fly over Toulouse-Lautrec’s deathbed.
