A fascination with the spectacle, nightlife, and the tawdry side of celebrity culture is hardly a recent phenomenon. The artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 – 1901) is famed for his images, created more than a century ago, of entertainers in the cabarets, dance halls, theaters and brothels of Paris. The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT, is presenting the major exhibition In the Limelight: Toulouse-Lautrec Portraits from the Herakleidon Museum, which showcases the artist`s portraits of the dancers, singers and other performers who became the icons of the Parisian nightlife in the late 19th century. Featuring 100 drawings, prints, and posters (approximately half of the Herakleidon Museum`s extensive collection of Toulouse-Lautrec works on paper), the exhibition explores the relationship between portraiture, caricature, and rise of the cult of celebrity in Belle Époque Paris. Lautrec wanted to show life as it is, not as it should
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