Salon des Cent: Exposition Internationale d'affiches

Salon des Cent: Exposition Internationale d'affiches is a vibrant lithograph created by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 1895. Produced using a highly sophisticated process involving seven colors printed on machine wove paper, this print was designed to serve as the advertising poster for the Salon des Cent’s major international exhibition of posters held in Paris. Toulouse-Lautrec, a master known for transforming commercial advertising into high art, captured the energy and shifting cultural mores of the fin-de-siècle era.

The work features the artist’s characteristic style of strong, flat planes of color and dynamic, theatrical compositions, borrowing heavily from the cropped perspectives and bold lines found in Japanese ukiyo-e prints. The primary subject matter focuses on a pair of women positioned centrally, a common element in the artist’s exploration of Parisian life and the female figure in modern public settings. The woman in the foreground, wearing an oversized hat that partially obscures her face, dominates the visual space, lending the advertisement an air of stylish anonymity appropriate for the burgeoning poster collecting culture of the time.

This piece exemplifies Toulouse-Lautrec's influence on graphic design, showing how he elevated the functional requirements of commercial prints to fine art status. The successful production of limited edition prints of this nature made the works highly collectible upon their release. Today, this influential work is preserved in the comprehensive collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. High-quality representations of the artwork are often made available through museum initiatives, sometimes entering the public domain to facilitate greater scholarly access and appreciation for the foundational works of modern graphic arts.