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“A Good artist has less time than ideas.”

Martin Kippenberger

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Martin Kippenberger - 27 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy

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Find the latest shows, biography, and artworks for sale by Martin Kippenberger. Martin Kippenberger emerged amidst Neo-Expressionism as an artistic provocate...

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“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.”

Paul Cezanne

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Post-Impressionist French painter Paul Cézanne is best known for his incredibly varied painting style, which greatly influenced 20th century abstract art. Learn more about his life and career at Biography.com.

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“Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.”

Salvador Dali

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Who Was Salvador Dalí?

Salvador Dalí was born on May 11, 1904, in Figueres, Spain. From an early age Dalí was encouraged to practice his art, and he would eventually go on to study at an academy in Madrid. In the 1920s, he went to Paris and began interacting with artists such as Picasso, Magritte and Miró, which led to Dalí's first Surrealist phase. He is perhaps best known for his 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory, showing melting clocks in a landscape setting. The rise of fascist leader Francisco Franco in Spain led to the artist's expulsion from the Surrealist movement, but that didn't stop him from painting. Dalí died in Figueres in 1989.

Early Life

Salvador Dalí was born Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí y Domenech on May 11, 1904, in Figueres, Spain, located 16 miles from the French border in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. His father, Salvador Dalí y Cusi, was a middle class lawyer and notary. Salvador's father had a strict disciplinary approach to raising children-a style of child-rearing which contrasted sharply with that of his mother, Felipa Domenech Ferres. She often indulged young Salvador in his art and early eccentricities.

It has been said that young Salvador was a precocious and intelligent child, prone to fits of anger against his parents and schoolmates. Consequently, Dalí was subjected to furious acts of cruelty by more dominant students or his father. The elder Salvador wouldn't tolerate his son's outbursts or eccentricities, and punished him severely. Their relationship deteriorated when Salvador was still young, exacerbated by competition between he and his father for Felipa's affection.

Dalí had an older brother, born nine months before him, also named Salvador, who died of gastroenteritis. Later in his life, Dalí often related the story that when he was 5 years old, his parents took him to the grave of his older brother and told him he was his brother's reincarnation. In the metaphysical prose he frequently used, Dalí recalled, "[we] resembled each other like two drops of water, but we had different reflections." He "was probably a first version of myself, but conceived too much in the absolute."

Salvador, along with his younger sister Ana Maria and his parents, often spent time at their summer home in the coastal village of Cadaques. At an early age, Salvador was producing highly sophisticated drawings, and both of his parents strongly supported his artistic talent. It was here that his parents built him an art studio before he entered art school.

Upon recognizing his immense talent, Salvador Dalí's parents sent him to drawing school at the Colegio de Hermanos Maristas and the Instituto in Figueres, Spain, in 1916. He was not a serious student, preferring to daydream in class and stand out as the class eccentric, wearing odd clothing and long hair. After that first year at art school, he discovered modern painting in Cadaques while vacationing with his family. There, he also met Ramon Pichot, a local artist who frequently visited Paris. The following year, his father organized an exhibition of Salvador's charcoal drawings in the family home. By 1919, the young artist had his first public exhibition, at the Municipal Theatre of Figueres.

In 1921, Dalí's mother, Felipa, died of breast cancer. Dalí was 16 years old at the time, and was devastated by the loss. His father married his deceased wife's sister, which did not endear the younger Dalí any closer to his father, though he respected his aunt. Father and son would battle over many different issues throughout their lives, until the elder Dalí's death.

Art School and Surrealism

In 1922, Dalí enrolled at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid. He stayed at the school's student residence and soon brought his eccentricity to a new level, growing long hair and sideburns, and dressing in the style of English Aesthetes of the late 19th century. During this time, he was influenced by several different artistic styles, including Metaphysics and Cubism, which earned him attention from his fellow students-though he probably didn't yet understand the Cubist movement entirely.

In 1923, Dalí was suspended from the academy for criticizing his teachers and allegedly starting a riot among students over the academy's choice of a professorship. That same year, he was arrested and briefly imprisoned in Gerona for allegedly supporting the Separatist movement, though Dalí was actually apolitical at the time (and remained so throughout most of his life). He returned to the academy in 1926, but was permanently expelled shortly before his final exams for declaring that no member of the faculty was competent enough to examine him.

While in school, Dalí began exploring many forms of art including classical painters like Raphael, Bronzino and Diego Velázquez (from whom he adopted his signature curled moustache). He also dabbled in avant-garde art movements such as Dada, a post-World War I anti-establishment movement. While Dalí's apolitical outlook on life prevented him from becoming a strict follower, the Dada philosophy influenced his work throughout his life.

In between 1926 and 1929, Dalí made several trips to Paris, where he met with influential painters and intellectuals such as Pablo Picasso, whom he revered. During this time, Dalí painted a number of works that displayed Picasso's influence. He also met Joan Miró, the Spanish painter and sculptor who, along with poet Paul Éluard and painter René Magritte, introduced Dalí to Surrealism. By this time, Dalí was working with styles of Impressionism, Futurism and Cubism. Dalí's paintings became associated with three general themes: 1) man's universe and sensations, 2) sexual symbolism and 3) ideographic imagery.

All of this experimentation led to Dalí's first Surrealistic period in 1929. These oil paintings were small collages of his dream images. His work employed a meticulous classical technique, influenced by Renaissance artists, that contradicted the "unreal dream" space that he created with strange hallucinatory characters. Even before this period, Dalí was an avid reader of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theories. Dalí's major contribution to the Surrealist movement was what he called the "paranoiac-critical method," a mental exercise of accessing the subconscious to enhance artistic creativity. Dalí would use the method to create a reality from his dreams and subconscious thoughts, thus mentally changing reality to what he wanted it to be and not necessarily what it was. For Dalí, it became a way of life.

In 1929, Salvador Dalí expanded his artistic exploration into the world of film-making when he collaborated with Luis Buñuel on two films, Un Chien andalou ( An Andalusian Dog) and L'Age d'or ( The Golden Age, 1930), the former of which is known for its opening scene-a simulated slashing of a human eye by a razor. Dalí's art appeared several years later in another film, Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. Dalí's paintings were used in a dream sequence in the film, and aided the plot by giving clues to solving the secret to character John Ballantine's psychological problems.

In August 1929, Dalí met Elena Dmitrievna Diakonova (sometimes written as Elena Ivanorna Diakonova), a Russian immigrant 10 years his senior. At the time, she was the wife of Surrealist writer Paul Éluard. A strong mental and physical attraction developed between Dalí and Diakonova, and she soon left Éluard for her new lover. Also known as "Gala," Diakonova was Dalí's muse and inspiration, and would eventually become his wife. She helped balance-or one might say counterbalance -the creative forces in Dalí's life. With his wild expressions and fantasies, he wasn't capable of dealing with the business side of being an artist. Gala took care of his legal and financial matters, and negotiated contracts with dealers and exhibition promoters. The two were married in a civil ceremony in 1934.

By 1930, Salvador Dalí had become a notorious figure of the Surrealist movement. Marie-Laure de Noailles and Viscount and Viscountess Charles were his first patrons. French aristocrats, both husband and wife invested heavily in avant-garde art in the early 20th century. One of Dalí's most famous paintings produced at this time-and perhaps the best-known Surrealist work-was The Persistence of Memory (1931). The painting, sometimes called Soft Watches, shows melting pocket watches in a landscape setting. It is said that the painting conveys several ideas within the image, chiefly that time is not rigid and everything is destructible.

By the mid-1930s, Salvador Dalí had become as notorious for his colorful personality as his artwork, and, for some art critics, the former was overshadowing the latter. Often sporting an exaggeratedly long mustache, a cape and a walking stick, Dalí's public appearances exhibited some unusual behavior. In 1934, art dealer Julian Levy introduced Dalí to America in a New York exhibition that caused quite a lot of controversy. At a ball held in his honor, Dalí, in characteristic flamboyant style, appeared wearing a glass case across his chest which contained a brassiere.

Expulsion from the Surrealists

As war approached in Europe, specifically in Spain, Dalí clashed with members of the Surrealist movement. In a "trial" held in 1934, he was expelled from the group. He had refused to take a stance against Spanish militant Francisco Franco (while Surrealist artists like Luis Buñuel, Picasso and Miró had), but it's unclear whether this directly led to his expulsion. Officially, Dalí was notified that his expulsion was due to repeated "counter-revolutionary activity involving the celebration of fascism under Hitler." It is also likely that members of the movement were aghast at some of Dalí's public antics. However, some art historians believe that his expulsion had been driven more by his feud with Surrealist leader André Breton.

Despite his expulsion from the movement, Dalí continued to participate in several international Surrealist exhibitions into the 1940s. At the opening of the London Surrealist exhibition in 1936, he delivered a lecture titled "Fantomes paranoiaques athentiques" ("Authentic paranoid ghosts") while dressed in a wetsuit, carrying a billiard cue and walking a pair of Russian wolfhounds. He later said that his attire was a depiction of "plunging into the depths" of the human mind.

During World War II, Dalí and his wife moved to the United States. They remained there until 1948, when they moved back to his beloved Catalonia. These were important years for Dalí. The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York gave him his own retrospective exhibit in 1941. This was followed by the publication of his autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942). Also during this time, Dalí's focus moved away from Surrealism and into his classical period. His feud with members of the Surrealist movement continued, but Dalí seemed undaunted. His ever-expanding mind had ventured into new subjects.

The Dalí Theatre-Museum

Over the next 15 years, Dalí painted a series of 19 large canvases that included scientific, historical or religious themes. He often called this period "Nuclear Mysticism." During this time, his artwork took on a technical brilliance combining meticulous detail with fantastic and limitless imagination. He would incorporate optical illusions, holography and geometry within his paintings. Much of his work contained images depicting divine geometry, the DNA, the Hyper Cube and religious themes of Chastity.

From 1960 to 1974, Dalí dedicated much of his time to creating the Teatro-Museo Dalí (Dalí Theatre-Museum) in Figueres. The museum's building had formerly housed the Municipal Theatre of Figueres, where Dalí saw his public exhibition at the age of 14 (the original 19th century structure had been destroyed near the end of the Spanish Civil War). Located across the street from the Teatro-Museo Dalí is the Church of Sant Pere, where Dalí was baptized and received his first communion (his funeral would later be held there as well), and just three blocks away is the house where he was born.

The Teatro-Museo Dalí officially opened in 1974. The new building was formed from the ruins of the old and based on one of Dalí's designs, and is billed as the world's largest Surrealist structure, containing a series of spaces that form a single artistic object where each element is an inextricable part of the whole. The site is also known for housing the broadest range of work by the artist, from his earliest artistic experiences to works that he created during the last years of this life. Several works on permanent display were created expressly for the museum.

Also in '74, Dalí dissolved his business relationship with manager Peter Moore. As a result, all rights to his collection were sold without his permission by other business managers and he lost much of his wealth. Two wealthy American art collectors, A. Reynolds Morse and his wife, Eleanor, who had known Dalí since 1942, set up an organization called "Friends of Dalí" and a foundation to help boost the artist's finances. The organization also established the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Final Years

In 1980, Dalí was forced to retire from painting due to a motor disorder that caused permanent trembling and weakness in his hands. No longer able to hold a paint brush, he'd lost the ability to express himself the way he knew best. More tragedy struck in 1982, when Dalí's beloved wife and friend, Gala, died. The two events sent him into a deep depression. He moved to Pubol, in a castle that he had purchased and remodeled for Gala, possibly to hide from the public or, as some speculate, to die. In 1984, Dalí was severely burned in a fire. Due to his injuries, he was confined to wheelchair. Friends, patrons and fellow artists rescued him from the castle and returned him to Figueres, making him comfortable at the Teatro-Museo.

In November 1988, Salvador Dalí entered a hospital in Figueres with a failing heart. After a brief convalescence, he returned to the Teatro-Museo. On January 23, 1989, in the city of his birth, Dalí died of heart failure at the age of 84. His funeral was held at the Teatro-Museo, where he was buried in a crypt.

Paternity Case and New Exhibition

On June 26, 2017, a judge in a Madrid court ordered that Dalí's body be exhumed to settle a paternity case. A 61-year-old Spanish woman named María Pilar Abel Martínez claimed that her mother had an affair with the artist while she was working as a maid for his neighbors in Port Lligat, a town in northeastern Spain.

The judge ordered the artist's body to be exhumed because of a "lack of other biological or personal remains" to compare to Martinez's DNA. The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, which manages Dalí's estate, appealed the ruling, but the exhumation went ahead the following month. In September, results from the DNA tests revealed that Dalí was not father.

That October, the artist was back in the news with the announcement of an exhibition at the Dalí museum in Saint Petersburg, Florida, to celebrate his friendship and collaboration with Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. The two were known for the joint creation of a "lobster dress" worn by American socialite Wallis Simpson, who later married English King Edward VIII.

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A new exhibition at the Dali Museum in Saint Petersburg, Florida, plays tribute the friendship and influence of the painter and fashion designer. Dali is seen as one of the founders of the Surrealist art movement with his "paranoiac-critical method."

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“There's no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there's no end to it.”

Henry Moore

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Summary of Henry Moore

Henry Moore was probably the quintessential British sculptor of the 20 th century. Non-Western art was crucial in shaping his early work, leading European modernists were later influences, and Moore united these inspirations was a deeply felt humanism. He returned again and again to the motifs of the mother and child, and the reclining figure, and often used abstract forms to draw analogies between the human body and the landscape. Although sculpture remained his principal medium, he was also a fine draughtsman, and his images of figures sheltering on the platforms of subway stations in London during the bombing raids of World War II remain much loved. His interest in the landscape, and in nature, has encouraged the perception that he has deep roots in traditions of British art, yet his softly optimistic, redemptive view of humanity also brought him an international audience. Today, few major cities are without one of his reclining figures, reminders that the humanity can rebound from any disaster.

Accomplishments

The foundation of Moore's approach was direct carving, something he derived not only from European modernism, but also from non-Western art. He abandoned the process of modeling (often in clay or plaster) and casting (often in bronze) that had been the basis of his art education, and instead worked on materials directly. He liked the fierce involvement direct carving brought with materials such as wood and stone. It was important, he said, that the sculptor "gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head... he identifies himself with its center of gravity."

Related to his commitment to direct carving was a belief in the ethic of 'truth to materials.' This was the idea that the sculptor should respect the intrinsic properties of media like wood and stone, letting them show through in the finished piece. A material had its own vitality, Moore believed, "an intense life of its own," and it was his job to reveal it.

During the 1930s, Moore's most fruitful and experimental decade, he was influenced by both Constructivism and, to a much greater extent, Surrealism. From the former he came to appreciate the importance of abstract form, from the latter he derived much of his interest in lending a human and psychological dimension to his sculpture. But Surrealism also shaped his mature style. It encouraged his love of biomorphic forms, and also suggested how the human figure could be fragmented into parts and reduced to essentials.

Moore's interest in non-Western art gave much of his early work a frontal character, yet as he matured he became more interested in utilizing three dimensions. It was this which led him to introduce 'holes' into his sculptures, so that the object almost seems to grow out of an absent center.

Just as the human body inspired Moore's forms, so too did the natural world. He often derived ideas from objects such as pebbles, shells and bones, and the way he evoked them in his sculpture encouraged the viewer to look upon the natural world as one endlessly varied sculpture, created continually by natural processes. Evoking both the natural world and the human body simultaneously in his work, Moore created a picture of humanity as a powerful natural force.

Biography of Henry Moore

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Henry Moore was probably the quintessential British sculptor of the 20 th century. Non-Western art was crucial in shaping his early work, leading European modernists were later influences, and Moore united these inspirations was a deeply felt humanism.

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“In our time there are many artists who do something because it is new; they see their value and their justification in this newness. They are deceiving themselves; novelty is seldom the essential. This has to do with one thing only; making a subject better from its intrinsic nature.”

Henri de Toulouse Lautrec

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Synopsis

In addition to being the artist who designed the Moulin Rouge's legendary posters, Toulouse-Lautrec was an aristocrat, dwarf, and party animal who invented a cocktail called the Earthquake (half absinthe, half cognac). His favorite pursuits were dressing up (geisha girl and clown get-ups were among his more memorable party outfits) and frequenting Parisian brothels, where he was a V.I.P. Like insects trapped in amber, his paintings, drawings and of course his famous posters preserve the swirl of energy, mix of classes and cultures, and the highs and lows of urban life in 19 th-century Paris.

Key Ideas

Toulouse-Lautrec was the first artist to elevate advertising to the status of a fine art. This is an extraordinary shift in the history of art, obliterating the boundaries between high (painting, drawing, sculpture) and low (posters, logos and other forms of visual culture) art. Acknowledging that some of his greatest masterpieces were posters for nightclubs does not in any way diminish their value. On the contrary, it set the gold standard for great commercial artists from Alphonse Mucha to Andy Warhol.

In contrast to nearly all of the other artists in his circle, Toulouse-Lautrec had no trouble making a living. This is chiefly because Parisian business owners realized they could make money from his unique (modern) vision. In contrast to artists who worked for private collectors, galleries or the government, he worked for the entertainment business, where selling drinks and tickets was the bottom line. Jane Avril, one of his closest friends and one of Montmartre's most beloved cabaret dancers, later wrote: "It is more than certain that I owe him the fame that I enjoyed dating from his first poster of me."

Thanks to his childhood tutor - also an art therapist - who encouraged him to shift his energy from riding to drawing (a safer pursuit for a child struggling with illness), Toulouse-Lautrec's early passion for physical activity was channeled directly into his art. The breathless excitement and athleticism of his sinuous line is like muscle memory - physical energy transposed into art.

By sheer force of will, Toulouse-Lautrec turned his disability into a superpower. At a time when the only acceptable designation for persons with disabilities was freak, Toulouse-Lautrec used his unique appearance to his advantage. It allowed him to disappear into a crowd or the corners of a bedroom, seeing others without being seen.

Toulouse-Lautrec's remarkable observations of people on the margins of society almost certainly stems from his status as an outsider. The crooners, dancers, acrobats and prostitutes with whom he socialized were his adopted family. He identified with them, and there is every indication that he saw them as equals.

More than simply a brilliant advertiser and artist, Toulouse-Lautrec was an important informal visual historian of urban life in Belle Epoque Paris. The film "Moulin Rouge" and other period pieces based on the Belle Epoque, are heavily informed by his posters, prints, and paintings.

Most Important Art

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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Artworks in Focus:

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Overview Continues Below

Biography

Childhood and Education

Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa (the long name reflects his high-class social status) was born into an aristocratic family in the South of France. Raised in an atmosphere of privilege, he loved animals, and owned and rode horses. By age 8, it was clear that he suffered from a congenital illness that weakened his bones. After two serious riding accidents his legs stopped growing. At his full height, Toulouse-Lautrec was 5 feet tall, with the upper body of a man and the legs of a child. He walked with a cane and in considerable pain for the rest of his life.

Early Period

Unable to participate in the equestrian pursuits and other pleasures afforded other aristocrats of his age and station, Toulouse-Lautrec took art lessons with a local instructor, Rene Princeteau, who assisted him in channeling his passion for horses into drawing and painting. His first drawings were of horses, and the dynamism of line in Two Riders on Horseback (1879) shows his gift for observing and transposing action onto paper, cardboard or canvas. It was around that time that he discovered the Impressionists. Degas shared his love of horses and was his most important early influence, shown in Toulouse-Lautrec's elegant, gestural line, capture of movement, and immediate and early gravitation toward racy urban subjects.

Shunning the more prestigious traditional Ecole des Beaux-Arts (which still taught students how to paint in the manner of the Italian Renaissance), upon his arrival in Paris in 1882 Toulouse-Lautrec sought (and could afford) individualized instruction in the small studios of Leon Bonnat and Bernard Corman. These teachers fostered unorthodox training and experimental approaches. Cormon's students included the renegades Vincent van Gogh and Emile Bernard, who became Toulouse-Lautrec's friends. Unchaperoned for the first time, the teenage Toulouse-Lautrec went wild in Paris, and its colorful night life became the center of his world. Despite ongoing struggles with his health, he was - by all accounts - the life of the party. Exceedingly charming, gracious, witty, and sarcastic, he became a fixture in Montmartre's cabarets, bars, circuses and brothels, where he knew the prostitutes by name (they, in turn, affectionately called him "the Coffeepot" - an affectionate reference to the diminutive artist's generous proportions). Learning from a circle of friends and mentors in Paris that worked hard and played hard, he developed his unforgettable shorthand approach to observing from life. As he sat in the theater or circus, he sketched the performers. When in the brothel, he sketched the prostitutes. Like the Impressionists, he preferred to work on site, in front of the motif, beginning and completing his compositions on the spot. Unlike the Impressionists, (with the notable exception of Degas) who gravitated toward scenes of upper-middle-class leisure, Toulouse-Lautrec chose urban night life, the more disreputable the better.

His diminutive stature allowed him a degree of invisibility, so that he could observe others closely. Prostitutes and performers, accustomed to being judged, were not afraid of him. His portrait of the prostitute known as La Casque d'Or in The Streetwalker (1890-91) captures the unprecedented frankness of his approach, and reflects the degree to which his models trusted him.

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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Biography Continues

Perhaps because he had always felt like an outsider, Toulouse-Lautrec developed a circle of friends on the margins of society to whom he was exceedingly generous; they looked out for him, too. Dancers, crooners, and circus performers that lived and worked in the bohemian Montmartre neighborhood of Paris became his friends.

Mature Period

Commercial success came early to the talented young artist, who was literally an overnight sensation. Three thousand copies of Toulouse-Lautrec's very first poster for the Moulin Rouge were hung around the city one December evening and crowds came pouring into the cabaret, stimulated by this memorable image. As a token of appreciation for the artist's work (and to ensure that he would be available to do future work for them), the cabaret reserved seating for him, and displayed his paintings on their walls.

Toulouse-Lautrec's arrival in Paris coincided with an explosion of activity in the entertainment district of Montmartre and a leap in the sophistication of the advertising business. Stimulated by an influx of people moving from the countryside to Paris (working-class people who found employment in the city's circuses, bars and cafés, and the moneyed classes with resources), business owners and entertainers vied with one another for the business of customers who decided on the evening's entertainment based on the word on the street. Posters were intended to generate buzz for a fickle and distractible clientele who chose to attend an event based on whether or not they liked the poster. Toulouse-Lautrec had everything it took to generate interest in these venues: colorful, eye-catching, dynamic forms that captured the essential characteristics of the venue and its performers. Future venues hung his advertising posters by the thousands, and they became collector's items during his lifetime. The anarchist critic Felix Fenéon published an article with explicit instructions on how to take one of Toulouse-Lautrec's posters down before the glue had a chance to dry.

Later Period

Once business owners knew how good he was, Toulouse-Lautrec, who wasn't exactly hard up for money to begin with, had an unlimited supply of work. He essentially had the ideal job: he could pick and choose what performances he wanted to go to, usually admission-free. He continued generating posters for the Moulin Rouge, and was a VIP at virtually any other performance in Paris that struck his fancy: circus acts, the Jardin de Paris and other nightclubs. He was also a regular at the city's brothels where he availed himself of the services of the prostitutes, who treated their customer with a level of kindness and humanity to which he was unaccustomed. He reciprocated with financial generosity and a series, ( Elles) that affords a level of human insight into the business of prostitution that is unavailable in any other study from the period. He moved into these establishments for short periods of time, raising eyebrows among those in the know when the artist gave out his address. An occasional prostitute who modeled for and also took art lessons with Toulouse-Lautrec was Suzanne Valadon, who moved on to a significant career as a visual artist.

Toulouse-Lautrec died in 1901, a few weeks shy of his 37 th birthday. The cause was probably alcoholism and syphilis. While he suffered terribly, Toulouse-Lautrec wasn't one to feel sorry for himself, and neither should we. Part of the deep pleasure of looking at his work is the manner in which it acknowledges the value of our time. Like a passerby on the street, even if we have only a second to look, we get something out of it. In his brilliant, graphic line that never stops moving, what comes through is his zest for life.

Legacy

Toulouse-Lautrec's career coincided with the expansion of the urban middle class -- people with money to spend on entertainment, but who weren't part of high society. He anticipated and shaped the needs of this audience and his style began to make an impact during his lifetime, inspiring the exaggerated outlines, languid, organic forms and script writing that appeared in the Art Nouveau movement.

He is one of the pillars holding up the rest of modern art. Without him, you'd have no Picasso, Warhol, Diane Arbus, or Chuck Close. Toulouse-Lautrec's celebration of consumer culture and iconic popular advertisements paved the way for Pop art. In addition his portrayals fueled the obsession with superstars that persists today (think Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber, Madonna, Miley Cyrus - the list goes on and on).

One further aspect of Toulouse-Lautrec's achievement deserves special attention. Despite the celebrated freedom and individualism of modern art, few artists of any period have been able to overcome social prejudice. While rubbing elbows with the riffraff was an acceptable, even encouraged rite-of- passage among avant-garde artists, Degas, Manet, and Van Gogh maintained a certain aloofness from their working-class subjects. Toulouse-Lautrec was able to develop true friendships that transcended the rigid class structure of 19 th-century Paris. His brilliant insights into the glitter and desperation of Paris nightlife, a study in contrasts, were not only more brilliant but more humane than any that had come before him, setting the bar high for future artists.

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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works

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In addition to being the artist who designed the Moulin Rouge's legendary posters, Toulouse-Lautrec was an aristocrat, dwarf, and party animal who invented a cocktail called the Earthquake (half absinthe, half cognac). His favorite pursuits were dressing up (geisha girl and clown get-ups were among his more memorable party outfits) and frequenting Parisian brothels, where he was a V.I.P.

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“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”

Vincent van Gogh

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I am also fan of Monet: "No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition. "

Claude Monet

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Claude Monet: Claude Monet, French painter who was the initiator, leader, and unswerving advocate of the Impressionist style.

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“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.”

Claude Monet

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“Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.”

Leonardo da Vinci

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Leonardo Da Vinci - The Complete Works - leonardoda-vinci.org

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The complete works of Leonardo Da Vinci. Large resolution images, rating, ecard, download possibility.

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“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”

Salvador Dali

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Learn about Salvador Dali: The man. The master. The marvel. Salvador Dalí is one of the most celebrated artists of all time.

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“Great art picks up where nature ends.”

Marc Chagall

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“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.”

Vincent van Gogh

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"Any artist who has nothing eccentric in his person will never become a superior talent."

Michelangelo

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Michelangelo - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com

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Find out more about the history of Michelangelo, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com

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"The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls."

Pablo Picasso