Image: caumont-centredart.com
Caumont-Centre d'Art in Aix-en-Provence will present 'Toulouse-Lautrec, créateur d’icônes' from 24 April to 4 October 2026. The exhibition is dedicated to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, described by the venue as one of the major artists of the Belle Époque, and is designed around a lively scenography that aims to immerse visitors in the bohemian atmosphere of Montmartre.
According to the exhibition page, the presentation brings together paintings, posters and lithographs to show how Toulouse-Lautrec transformed both public personalities and anonymous figures of his era into images that became icons of modernity. The institution says the show focuses on his ability to capture the people and places of late-19th-century Paris with a graphic language that remains immediately recognizable.
The exhibition frames Toulouse-Lautrec’s practice through the range of media he explored, from intimate paintings such as 'Femme au boa noir' to emblematic Belle Époque posters such as 'Divan Japonais'. The venue highlights his use of strong contrasts, flat areas of colour, mise en abyme and layered compositions, as well as lithography and the technique of crachis, which helped him vary surfaces and increase the visual force of his images.
The exhibition text also places emphasis on Toulouse-Lautrec’s economy of means and his interest in japonisme. It says he stripped away unnecessary detail to retain only essential elements, citing details such as Yvette Guilbert’s black gloves, the yellow collar of the clown Cha-U-Kao, and the snake-like dress and tall hats associated with Jane Avril. The site presents this visual reduction as part of a language that anticipated the codes of modern advertising.
'Leaving from the cabarets of Montmartre to Parisian theatres, from racetracks to brothels, Toulouse-Lautrec captured the emblematic places of his time, but above all the bodies and faces that animated them,' the exhibition text states. It describes him as attentive to the psychology of his models and as an observer who revealed their singularity beyond their public image, with figures including La Goulue, Aristide Bruant and Jane Avril.
The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec. Caumont-Centre d'Art says the route will include nearly a hundred works, including paintings, lithographs and sketches. The exhibition is listed at Caumont-Centre d'Art, 3 rue Joseph Cabassol, Aix-en-Provence, and the venue states that it is open daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the exhibition period.
