Placed within the context of his sexual experiences in Montmartre, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s association between the color red and the world of prostitution comes as no surprise. When he first moved to Paris in the 1880s to study art academically, he was the naïve, sheltered, and handicapped child of aristocrats (Frey). These handicaps did not stunt his social growth, however; the other young artists he met in Fernand Cormon’s atelier soon became his close friends, and before long helped him lose his sexual innocence. During this period, he set up his own studio in Montmartre (Murray 11), an artists’ neighborhood that was part of la ceinture rouge, an area characterized by filth, crime, poverty, and prostitution (Frey 185). Living in “the red belt” had a clear influence on his art: he was producing works with sexual themes as early as 1886, thereafter incorporating increasing amounts of sexual imagery in his paintings. He also began hiring prostitutes to pose for him, attesting that they acted more natural under observation than other models (Frey 218). Interestingly, his preferred models were women with red hair; he once explained to a friend that he found something about them arousing (Frey 171).
But Toulouse-Lautrec’s sexual associations with red had their most concrete and unfortunate initiation shortly after his move to Montmartre. His friends, suspecting that he had contracted a sexually transmitted disease, questioned him about his recent encounters and discovered that he had been visiting a local prostitute called “Rosa la Rouge.” Despite warnings that this “red rose” had syphilis, Toulouse-Lautrec continued to visit her; he was apparently incapable of controlling his sexual impulses (Frey 202). This early exposure to prostitution piqued both his carnal and artistic interests in the profession, and it soon became a common theme in both his life and his work. The Moulin Rouge, one of his favorite places both to sketch and to drink, only furthered this interest; behind the infamous red windmill was a veritable wealth of sex for sale. The nightclub had a reputation for being one of the largest open sex markets in the city, and Toulouse-Lautrec seems to have taken full advantage. According to a friend, “During breaks the chahut dancers crowded around [Toulouse-Lautrec], who would buy them drinks and then sketch them. Then he’d ‘take a few turns in the hall’” (Symons, qtd in Frey 262). Toulouse-Lautrec’s visits to the “red” nightclub were not strictly business; he also indulged in the sexual favors its dancers offered for a fee. For the fledgling artist, Montmartre’s various red threads - Rosa la Rouge, redheaded models, the Moulin Rouge’s red windmill - were unequivocally tied to prostitution.