Toulouse-Lautrec paints an intriguing picture

The largest exhibition in China about the life and art of French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) is ongoing at the Aurora Museum in Shanghai.

Titled Ethereal Life in Paris: A World Tour Exhibition With Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, the exhibition features the most comprehensive collection of artifacts related to the artist, including nearly 120 sets of artworks and more than 230 precious objects, from lithographs to poster designs and sketch drawings.

Though he lived for just 37 years, Toulouse-Lautrec created about 737 oil paintings, 275 watercolors, 368 prints and posters, and 5,084 sketch manuscripts.

"Art was the career he devoted himself to, and an important source of the meaning and value of his life. Thanks to painting, he changed from a depressed and disabled nobleman to a mirror of the times, an observer and recorder of life, and an innovator of art and design," says Wang Jia, an art historian and honorary curator of the Liechtenstein National Museum, who provided academic support for the exhibition in Shanghai.

The French artist was born in an aristocratic family and had as a teenager suffered from two accidents that resulted in his legs being atrophied. He later devoted much of his time and efforts to art. He frequented entertainment venues featuring the pop culture of Paris and recorded the nontraditional aspects of rapidly changing urban life, from bars and opera houses to horse and bicycle races to singers, actors, prostitutes and even clowns.

The artist presented such a vivid picture of the splendid nightlife in Montmartre, a Paris district, that he was eventually dubbed its "soul".