May Belfort
Medium
Color lithograph on tan wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 79.8 × 60 cm (31 7/16 × 23 5/8 in.); Sheet: 79.8 × 61.4 cm (31 7/16 × 24 3/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
67177
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The scarlet dress of May Belfort splashes color onto this otherwise minimal composition. Clad in her signature oversized baby bonnet, the Irish actress clutches a black cat; Belfort often brought her cat to her performances and tended to “meow” her songs. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec intended for this poster to be hung, as it is in this gallery, next to his design for May Milton, an English performer who was Belfort’s close friend and rumored lover.
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...