Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Paris during the La Belle Epoque is a place and time evoking many bawdy, even decadent connotations. Bohemian Montmartre, Moulin Rouge, Can-can dancers, legalized prostitution and widespread debauchery were all

relevant activities and themes. At the center of it all, sharing in the esprit du temps and chronicling the unique spectacle was a very talented artist with an especially acute eye for the provocative named Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Born to a moderately aristocratic family in Albi in 1864, life was not easy for the youth whose parents, first cousins whose mothers had been sisters, separated early on in his childhood. Owing to an obvious but largely undiagnosed genetic disorder (now speculated to be pycnodysostosis, or Toulouse-Lautrec Syndrome), Henri suffered from numerous illnesses and painfully disabling features his entire life. When both his legs fractured around the age of 13, they never healed properly leaving the lower half of his body undeveloped and prone to Rickets. Nevertheless his talent for drawing the painting was evident early on and his caretakers, specifically his mother, did everything to aid the youth with a proper education and tutelage. By 1880, Lautrec had settled semi-permanently in the Montmartre, home to the city's Red Light district as well as many other artists, namely Gauguin, Van Gogh, Bernard and Gen Paul, painters already emerging onto the exciting Post-Impressionist scene. Accepted within this circle and well-admired for his gifts with watercolor portraits and lithographs, the young Lautrec soon rose to prominence, his skill and exposure boosted by his steady stream of dry-point posters and snapshot image postcards of the city scenes. His well-endorsed paintings soon drew worldwide fame and Lautrec was able to travel extensively and live luxuriously. Tragically, the pain he suffered due to his condition as well as a general propensity for spirits plunged the young artist into severe alcoholism by his late twenties and even though family and friends tried to help him overcome his struggles, he died in 1901 at the age of 36. Several items showcase his unforgettable work such as The Life and Works of Lautrec (759.4 HARRIS), Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre (DVD 760.092 TOULOUSE), Toulouse-Lautrec: The Complete Graphic Works: A Catalogue Raisson: The Gerstenburg Collection (769.92 ADRIANI), and Toulouse-Lautrec: His Complete Lithographs and Dry-Points (769.924 A). There's also a foundation dedicated to his life which displays an entire collection of his work.

Adventures in Art: Newer Crime & Mystery Fiction Involving Art and Antiques

The Good Thief’s Guide To Paris: A Mystery / by Chris Ewan

Charlie Howard leads quite the double life: he’s a crime writer who’s also a professional burglar. One evening following a Paris book signing, a drunken Charlie spills his secret to a fan and, with some encouragement, agrees to show him the tools of his other trade by breaking into what he thinks is the man’s apartment. But it isn’t. The apartment actually belongs to someone possessing a seemingly useless painting which Charlie’s new acquaintance wants to get his hands on. (MYS EWAN)

The Bellini Card: A Novel / by Jason Goodwin

In Istanbul in 1840, Yashim is a Turkish eunuch who works behind the scenes at the behest of the Sultan investigating any mischief that might arise within the diplomatic community. Recently Yashim and his Polish emissary friend Stanislaw Palewski have accepted an assignment to look into a missing 15th century portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror done by Giovanni Bellini. The painting, a prized relic of the Sultan’s court, is thought to be in Venice which is where Yashim and Stanislaw must travel to find it. (MYS GOODWIN)

Among Thieves / by David Hosp

Attorney Scott Finn thinks he’s just helping to acquit his client Devon Malley of involvement with a recent clothing store burglary. But when some of Malley’s cronies begin turning up dead, things start to look a little fishy until Finn learns that Malley was involved in an infamous art heist from twenty years ago in which over $300 million worth of paintings were stolen and never recovered. Now the hunt for a killer also becomes a search for the missing artwork. (MYS HOSP)

Our Lady of Immaculate Deception / by Nancy Martin
Meet Roxy Abruzzo, a Pittsburgh local who’s as sassy as she is savvy about art and antiques. The owner of Bada Bling Architectural Salvage, Roxy soon finds herself in quite the predicament when she steals a pricy sculpture from one of the city’s wealthiest residents, the recently murdered Julius Hyde. Though she has a perfectly good reason for the heist, her little escapade sets off a slew of mayhem as Roxy must outwit the police, the estate of the late Mr. Hyde and even members of her own family to escape prosecution. (MYS MARTIN)

Painted Ladies / by Robert B. Parker

Boston Private Investigator Spenser has seen a lot of strange cases, but nothing remotely similar to his current assignment: to provide security during a private ransom exchange at local art museum for a stolen painting. Having been hired by art professor Dr. Ashton Prince, Spenser suspects something’s amiss as soon as he meets the cagey old scholar and knows something’s up when the exchange mysteriously falls through and the painting remains stolen. (MYS PARKER)

Murder In The Abstract / by Susan Shea

An art preservationist and chief fund-raiser for the Devor Museum in San Francisco, Danielle “Dani” O’Rourke is hosting a gala one evening when a young artist falls to his death from Dani’s office window. With no other leads to go on, the police have fingered Dani as a chief suspect and without a solid alibi, having been indisposed at the time of the fall, Dani must find the real culprit before it’s too late. (MYS SHEA)

The Same River Twice / by Ted Mooney

What do a Parisian fashion designer, an American independent filmmaker and the Russian Mafia have in common? They’re all after a particularly pricey collection of smuggled Russian folk art. It’s a high-stakes game which turns deadly before it’s all through in this caper set in the early 1990’s just after the fall of the Soviet Union. (FIC MOONEY)

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Painting Novels

.
I, Mona Lisa / by Jeanne Kalogridis
In this empassioned novel of Renaissance Italy, author Kalogridis examines the woman behind that mysterious smile depicted in Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa—Lisa di Antonio Gherardini. Her life and the eventful, often bloody, circumstances surrounding the commission and painting of her portrait are vividly described in this fascinating book.
.
Girl with a Pearl Earring / by Tracy Chevalier
A young girl becomes the friend and muse to renowned 17th century Dutch Painter Johannes Vermeer after she’s hired on as a servant at his Amsterdam home. Chevalier’s fictional story behind the famous painting is as charming as the portrait itself.
.
In the Company of the of the Courtesan / by Sarah Dunant
Amid the sacking of Rome in 1527, a young Courtesan, Fiametta Bianchini, escapes the city and heads to Venice in the company of her escort Bucino Teodoldo, a dwarf. This story and its heroine were inspired by Titian’s “Venus of Urbino”, which is featured on the cover.
.
Luncheon at the Boating Party / by Susan Vreeland
In her latest fictional rendition chronicling the events surrounding a famous painting, Vreeland tracks artist August Renoir as he labors under the Paris sun on his impressionist masterpiece, “Luncheon of the Boating Party”. Accompanying the often unpleasant heat is the stress of trying to get just the right people in just the right light, not to mention the unwanted attention of critical onlookers and a host of other distractions.

Happy Feelings

.
Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People / Maureen H. Hennessey, ed.

If ever an artist defied convention, it was not Norman Rockwell, whose ultra-contemporary portrayals of everyday life seeped into the national conscious during the ‘Greatest Generation’ era. A man whose work rarely featured anything but scenes from an idyllic mainstream, Rockwell’s art basically hinged on two things: nostalgia and charm. Children especially and family life in general were a favorite of Rockwell's whose representations of boyhood pastimes, little girl tea parties, and patriotic sympathy could hardly fail to bring a grin.
.

It was "The Saturday Evening Post" magazine which so readily delivered his artwork to the masses, the publication's covers featuring his clever caricatures for decades. Likely no other individual did more to secure the “good ol’ days” for those whose experiences during that time (1920-1960?) were at all worth remembering. Fans of the visual arts can't go wrong with this sample of his work, or any of the library's other seven Norman Rockwell books.