Luce Myres Full Face (Luce Myrès, de face)

Luce Myres Full Face (Luce Myrès, de face) is a lithograph created by the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 1895. This work falls firmly within the highly innovative period spanning 1876 to 1900, a time when Toulouse-Lautrec was transitioning from painting to the dynamic and commercially vital medium of printmaking.

The composition captures the sitter, Luce Myrès, directly in a frontal presentation that emphasizes psychological depth over decorative detail. As a master printmaker, Toulouse-Lautrec employed the lithographic medium to achieve a characteristic balance of fluid line work and subtle tonal variation. This technique allowed the artist a freedom similar to drawing, enabling him to render expression through minimal modeling and stark presentation, eschewing the dense detail often found in traditional portraiture.

The creation of this print exemplifies the explosion of graphic arts and the rise of the poster aesthetic in late 19th-century French culture. Toulouse-Lautrec was central to this shift, utilizing the reproductive ease of prints to capture the personalities of Montmartre and the figures within the Parisian entertainment world. While many of his works depict scenes of movement and theater, this specific piece provides an intimate, unidealized focus on the individual face.

This piece, classified as a print, remains an important example of the artist’s mature graphic output and his unique ability to distill character onto paper. Today, the lithograph Luce Myres Full Face (Luce Myrès, de face) is held in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art, where it contributes to the understanding of fin-de-siècle art and the historical development of modern prints.