Caumont Centre d'Art - Toulouse-Lautrec, Créateur d'Icônes

ExpositionToulouse-Lautrec, Créateur d'icônesFrom 24 April to 4 October 2026Caumont-Centre d’Art dedicates its summer exhibition to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901), an emblematic figure of the Parisian avant-garde of the late 19th century.

Bringing together nearly a hundred works, the exhibition aims to decipher the artist's exceptional ability to create iconic images and to permanently embed his models in the collective memory.

At the end of the 19th century, Paris experienced the golden age of the artistic poster, driven by technical advances, particularly the rise of lithography and colour printing processes.

The poster became a field progressively invested by artists like Toulouse-Lautrec, who made it a ground for unprecedented stylistic experiments and innovations.

A painter of figures with a profoundly human gaze, Toulouse-Lautrec was able to capture the essence of his contemporaries with great freedom.

Through nearly a hundred works, the exhibition at Caumont-Centre d’Art will focus on revealing the methods employed that explain not only the originality and success of Toulouse-Lautrec's works, but also and above all their prodigious longevity.

Thus, by staging the celebrities of his time, associating them with immediately recognisable symbols and attributes, Toulouse-Lautrec contributed to their renown and created powerful images that transcended the years and elevated them to the rank of icons.

From ephemeral celebrities to timeless figures, he created these stars and succeeded in immortalising contemporary glories by transforming them into symbols of fin-de-siècle Paris.

Supported by a flamboyant scenography, the exhibition invites you to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of Montmartre bohemia while highlighting the artist's two preferred mediums: lithography and painting.

Drawing on the richness of unprecedented private collections and major museum institutions te