Lucien Guitry, from Treize Lithographies

The influential Post-Impressionist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864-1901) created Lucien Guitry, from Treize Lithographies in 1898. This sophisticated print, executed as a lithograph on ivory laid paper, exemplifies the artist’s dedicated focus on portraiture and the theater life of fin-de-siècle France. Lautrec’s mastery of the lithographic medium allowed him to produce expressive, spontaneous lines, capturing the personality of his subjects with immediacy and precision. The work is one of thirteen compositions compiled in the folio series known collectively as Treize Lithographies.

The subject of this intimate portrait is Lucien Guitry (1860-1925), one of the foremost French actors of the Belle Époque. Lautrec was a consistent presence in Paris’s bohemian venues, documenting performers, celebrities, and audiences in dynamic, often unvarnished compositions. Unlike the artist’s famous large-format theatrical posters, this classification of prints provides a more focused and less public glimpse of the sitter, emphasizing character over commercial promotion. Lautrec’s signature style, characterized by flattened perspective, bold silhouettes, and an economy of detail, was highly influenced by Japanese woodblock prints and perfectly suited the reproducibility inherent in lithography.

Dating from near the end of the artist’s prolific, albeit short, career, this 1898 work underscores Lautrec's vital contribution to modern French art at the close of the 19th century. The piece is held in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, which recognizes the artwork’s significance both as a historical record of the French cultural scene and as a technical achievement in printmaking. Given the age and established provenance of this artwork, high-resolution scans are frequently made available to the public domain, allowing enthusiasts and scholars worldwide to study the detail and technique of this celebrated French master.