Bad Press: Toulouse-Lautrec and his Portrayals of Yvette Guilbert

Abimbola Olayinka, Princeton Class of 2009

“For heavens sake, don’t make me look so hideously ugly! Not quite so bad! Many people who have been to my house screamed when they saw the coloured sketch!” (qtd. Koutsomallis, 23)

Hideously ugly…those were the words of Yvette Guilbert to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec regarding a sketch he had given to her (Koutsomallis, 23). Thoroughly frustrated by the many complaints she received about its unsightliness after displaying in her house for a period of time, Guilbert later admonished Lautrec to draw her as she appeared “because not everybody only sees the artistic side” (qtd. Koutsomallis, 23). This was not even the first time people had protested the gross distortions with which Toulouse-Lautrec portrayed Guilbert. In an album commissioned by Guilbert herself, Lautrec created a series of portraits that also drew negative comments from the public. People despised the depictions of Guilbert so much that her friends encouraged her to sue him for defamation of character (Frey, 390). Guilbert, a famous singer at the turn of the century, was not the typical buxom woman that could be found displayed on the stages of the show-halls and she could often be found singing songs about the vices of people in Montmartre in her uncommon sounding voice (“Yvette Guilbert”). Guilbert used the strangeness of her appearance and her voice to her advantage, wearing low-cut dresses and long black gloves and singing in a strange, theatrical style that captivated her audiences (“Yvette Guilbert”). The combination of her irreverence, incongruity and growing popularity made Guilbert a perfect icon of Montmartre. She and Lautrec connected when she asked him to prepare portraits for her album in 1894. The warm friendship that had developed between Guilbert and Toulouse-Lautrec was marred by the fact that when he was hired to publicize her, he drew her in an unappealing manner. Guilbert did not appreciate this and even went as far as to call Toulouse-Lautrec a “little monster” after she saw one of his sketches of her (Toulouse-Lautrec: A Retrospective, 188). Despite this there is no record of an altercation between them that would have caused Toulouse-Lautrec to begin portraying her in such an offensive style, so it must be concluded that Toulouse-Lautrec used Guilbert as a symbol of his dislike for the Parisian underworld. Her celebrity combined with her peculiarity and she essentially became the tool that Toulouse-Lautrec used to convey his negative thoughts and feelings about Montmartre.

But when his playboy reputation in Montmartre is considered, it does not make sense for Lautrec to ever need someone to serve as a symbol of the Parisian underworld. By 1899, when he was forced to withdraw from mainstream society, Lautrec and his friends were fixtures at the popular haunts in Montmartre. Le Chat Noir, Le Moulin Rouge, and Lautrec’s favorite, the Irish and American Bar were all places where Lautrec was commonly seen. Known for his excess and lavishness, he would often through parties at which he tested his new alcoholic concoctions on his friends and the many prostitutes he had as companions. He had many friendships, both with intellectuals and the stars of the stage. Uniquely, unlike many artists, Toulouse-Lautrec’s artwork was celebrated by many while he was still alive. Lautrec put up all appearances of loving life in Montmartre so it does not seem to follow that he would portray Guilbert in a way that would make her appear unattractive. Even if she symbolized Montmartre for Lautrec, the love that he bore for the place should have transferred into the drawings he made of his friend. Instead Lautrec adopted the attitude of his idol Degas, regarding his friends and coworkers from Montmartre as “…charming because of a special beauty compounded of plebian coarseness and of grace” (qtd Herbert, 129). This juxtaposition of grace and coarseness creates what Keith considers to be a “half-appealing, half-repellent” quality to the works of Toulouse-Lautrec (Keith, 9). And it is this repellent force that Toulouse-Lautrec’s drawing presents problem to the viewer. Even though the posters and lithographs of Toulouse-Lautrec are now considered museum worthy, in the nineteenth century these pieces were mass-produced in order to advertise a show or a person. They were supposed to draw people into the nightclubs and dance halls where women like Yvette Guilbert would show off her talents. It is obvious that something other than a love for Montmartre compelled Lautrec to draw Guilbert in this unattractive manner. By examining Toulouse-Lautrec’s use of line in the portraits will prove that it was Toulouse-Lautrec’s initial disgust and later ambivilance with life in Montmartre which led him to portray Guilbert as he did.

The Exhibit
Life as Lautrec
Move to Montmartre
First Impressions
Fading Out
The End Comes
And I'd Like to Thank...
About the Author

The Gallery
Partying in Moulin Rouge: Lautrec in Montmartre
Other Guilbert Representations
Yvette Guilbert:Turn-of-the-Century Teller
Beauty School