The Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest is celebrating Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec’s distinctive art with a staged exhibition that boasts the artist’s stylistic traits.

From the Elles series.From the Elles series.

High-profile exhibitions are increasingly becoming a benchmark of prestige for major art institutions. London has become synonymous with these, although it certainly does not hold exclusivity.

It has also become the norm for institutions across the globe to promote collaborative projects to develop exhibition narratives, exchange loans and bring together exhibitions with two or more successive venues. Rarely do museums have all the works in hand to mount a high-calibre exhibition without resorting to loans.

To mark the 150th anniversary from the birth of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 1864, Hungary’s National Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest is currently hosting a one-of-a-kind exhibition show-casing a huge collection of his lithographs. The exhibition only includes five posters on loan from the Albertina Museum (Vienna) which provide missing links to an otherwise staggering collection of 223 lithographs from the museum’s collection acquired shortly after the artist’s demise.

The visitor also gets to see life-size format photos of Toulouse-Lautrec and his peers at the Moulin Rouge

Indeed, this is one of three major collections of Toulouse- Lautrec lithographs, even though relatively unknown, only second in importance to the one at the Bibliotheque National in Paris and the Gerstenberg collection in Berlin.

The Budapest collection is nonetheless unique given that the Paris collection, which includes a complete set of the artist’s lithographs, was presented by Toulouse-Lautrec’s mother in 1902 and the Gerstenberg collection is but the make of a private collector and his interest in Toulouse-Lautrec prints.

The collection at the Budapest museum is one of the earliest and most complete collections to be acquired by a national institution and which has fortunately also survived the ravages of World War II and the shifts in taste during the German and communist occupations.

Toulouse-Lautrec was the son of a wealthy aristocratic family. His disability, brought about by an accident at the age of 13, led him to focus on art to subsequently become a recognised post-impressionist painter and lithographer.

The artist’s career was just over in 20 years, following his abrupt death at 37, but his repertoire is decidedly extensive and includes canvases, watercolours, drawings and over 350 prints of which the Budapest museum owns a significantly large proportion.

The exhibition presents a narrative based on the inter-personal relations of the artist’s circle of friends and acquaintances coming together at Parisian theatres, places of entertainment and neighbourhoods. At one point, the visitor also gets to see life-size format photos of Toulouse- Lautrec and his peers at the Moulin Rouge, hanging to mimic a theatrical setting.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s large-scale posters are also presented as prominent works introducing clusters of lithographs displayed according to a select theme or type and the sections are laid out to present different aspects of his life and production. Indeed, the storyline is scripted in such a way as to provide an encounter with the artist’s life through the persons portrayed in his works.

The exhibition has an unusual ease of flow from section to section and the subjects portrayed, most of which are portraits and narratives, make the exhibition much more accessible to the non-specialist.

The mood of the exhibition is set by the carefully-chosen colour scheme, choice of props and effective use of technology. A complementing yellow-grey colour scheme inspired by late 19th-century interiors is the general backdrop for the display of lithographs, only to change where the subject matters; a bold red is the choice of backdrop for Toulouse-Lautrec’s series of lithographs featuring prostitutes and courtesans.

Cabaret tables complete with throne chairs and hanging lamps in matching colour serve the purpose of traditional exhibition visitor seating. Technology is effectively used as a complementing information tool for the better understanding of the works on display; this without stealing the limelight from the rarely displayed lithographs.

Posters are artistic masterpieces

Toulouse Lautrec with model Maurice Guilbert.Toulouse Lautrec with model Maurice Guilbert.

Historic footage, including staged photographic imagery of Parisian brothels, is effectively used to provide context and help the visitor understand Toulouse-Lautrec’s powerful sense of synthesis in the sketchy lines of his lithographs by comparing with photographs.

The last section features the history of Toulouse-Lautrec’s collection of lithographs at the National Museum. The display includes receipts, documents and information explaining the reasons behind this unusual acquisition.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s distinctive signature and stylistic traits are discussed in a measure of detail and visitors can have a go at creating their digital version of a lithograph on an apposite touch screen.

Self-portrait at the Moulin Rouge.Self-portrait at the Moulin Rouge.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s biography and timeline hangs at the end of the exhibition next to a large format black and white unconventional portrait of the artist dressed in Japanese costume.

Lithographs and the exhibition set-up effectively create the artist’s world, as succinctly summarised in the exhibition title – The World of Toulouse-Lautrec. The portrait at the end of the exhibition is as effective in describing the artist and his world as the artist’s biography timeline.

The National Museum of Fine Arts in Hungary owns a varied collection of over 100,000 artworks spanning from ancient Egyptian to the moderns.

Key works from the collection, which once belonged to the rich collections of the Esterhazy noble family, were recently showcased at the exhibition Treasures from Budapest: European Masterpieces from Leonardo to Schiele, hosted by the Royal Academy of Arts (London) in 2010.

The London exhibition was but a broad foretaste of the richness and depth of Hungary’s national collections.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s collection of lithographs is the latest surprise coming from one of Europe’s most significant but lesser known national collections.

The World of Toulouse-Lautrec is open at the National Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, until August 24.

Sandro Debono is senior curator at the National Museum of Fine Arts and Muża project leader.

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