CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 7/21/2014

Toulouse-Lautrec in the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art

This weekend, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, opens The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec, an exhibition of prints and posters by the beloved French aristocrat, bohemian and lifelong alcoholic best known for his game-changing portrayals of Parisian nightlife; in particular, prostitutes. The 1892 lithograph "Queen of Pleasure (Reine de Joie)" is reproduced from the Museum's accompanying publication, Toulouse-Lautrec in the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art. In her catalogue essay, curator Sarah Suzuki writes, "His work creates a diaristic, nearly day-by-day account of his life: which venues he visited, which performers, plays or operas he saw, which songs he heard. In his dogged documentation, he was a non-photographic paparazzo, and a harbinger of our contemporary celebrity-obsessed culture. But he was also a performer himself, playing one role for his aristocratic family, and another as the outrageous drunk genius dwarf of bohemian Paris. His personal and professional obsessions, which he termed furias, were often performers in whom he likewise saw a successfully created and executed public persona. He paid special attention to those who, like him, truly inhabited their role."