Jane Avril
Medium
Color lithograph on tan wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 124 × 91.5 cm (48 7/8 × 36 1/16 in.); Sheet: 129 × 94 cm (50 13/16 × 37 1/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
67170
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In a tangerine-colored dress, Jane Avril performs a high kick, her arms lost among the voluptuous ruffles. Peeking out from beneath her petticoat, her toe points to a double-bass player. The neck of the instrument frames the poster. In contract to the rooted musician, Avril appears birdlike in her frenzied movements. Yet her expression is one of sadness or exhaustion, at odds with the glamorous nightclub setting.
About the Artist
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec · 1864–1901
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Montfa (1864-1901) was a French Post-Impressionist painter, printmaker, and illustrator whose innovative poster designs revolutionized graphic art and advertising in late 19th-century Paris. Born into an aristocratic family at Albi in southern France, Toulouse-Lautrec's privileged lineage traced back to the Counts of Toulouse and extended uninterrupted to th...