Anna Held

Anna Held is a lithograph created by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 1896. This specific impression is a detailed print executed in black ink on cream-colored velin paper, showcasing the artist's characteristic mastery of the graphic medium. As a key figure in the French art world active primarily between 1876 and 1900, Toulouse-Lautrec often chronicled the dynamic, sometimes rough, theatrical life of Paris during the Belle Époque.

Toulouse-Lautrec was renowned for his candid and often intimate portrayals of performers, dancers, and actors, transforming ephemeral promotional posters and flyers into high art. Anna Held was a celebrated Polish stage actress and singer who achieved major stardom in both France and America during this period. This work exemplifies the artist's ability to capture personality through minimalist line and dynamic, asymmetrical composition, techniques which made his prints highly influential in the development of modern graphic arts. The image functions less as a formalized society portrait and more as an immediate, observational study, typical of the reportorial style Toulouse-Lautrec adopted when documenting Parisian nightlife and celebrity culture.

The medium itself, lithography, allowed for the rapid reproduction and dissemination of images, placing the work of Toulouse-Lautrec and his contemporaries firmly at the intersection of fine art and mass communication. The piece, classified simply as a print, provides valuable insight into the commercial and artistic use of lithography during the turn of the century. Many of the artist's works, especially his prints, are now considered public domain and are widely studied for their innovative application of commercial printing techniques to high art. This particular impression of Anna Held is held in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art, where it serves as an important example of fin-de-siècle French graphic production.