American Singer (from Le Café Concert)

American Singer (from Le Café Concert) is a distinctive print by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, created in 1893. This work utilizes a specialized brush and spatter lithograph technique, printed in black on fine laid Japan paper, and originates from a deluxe edition produced that year. Toulouse-Lautrec was keenly focused on documenting the vibrant nightlife and entertainment culture of fin-de-siècle Paris, capturing the lively and sometimes raucous atmosphere of the city’s café concerts.

The subject is a robust male singer captured mid-performance, embodying the dynamic energy of the professional men who dominated the Parisian stage. Toulouse-Lautrec’s masterful handling of the lithographic process allows for a stark, immediate impression. He utilizes heavy, defining lines and granular texture, generated by the spatter technique, to model the performer’s form and define the dramatic shadow cast on the stage. Unlike idealized portraits, the work focuses intensely on the character and specific, somewhat exaggerated gesture of the singer, a hallmark of the artist's dedication to unvarnished realism.

As one of the most celebrated chroniclers of modern life, Toulouse-Lautrec's prolific output in posters and prints solidified his reputation and made his imagery widely accessible. This specific impression is designated as the only known state of the image and is part of the extensive collection of prints held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Because many significant works from this period have entered the public domain, this iconic representation of a Parisian singer continues to be studied as a vital record of late nineteenth-century social history and graphic innovation.