May Belfort

Apart from his skills in the field of painting and drawing, Toulouse-Lautrec was also an excellent lithographer and poster artist. This poster, produced to advertise the presentation of the Irish singer May Belfort at the Petit Casino in Paris in 1895, was a great success and won a prize the following year at the International Poster Exhibition held in Rheims. In this work the artist reflects the atmosphere of the cafés-concerts, the brothels and the Paris night-life, with a strong influence from the Japanese art that was so fashionable at the time. The high quality of his posters made an enormous impact and became a model for the main practitioners of this form of artistic expression.