The Last Song

The Last Song is a seminal color lithograph created by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec French, 1864-1901, in 1893. Executed using multiple runs on cream wove paper, this print exemplifies the artist's masterful command of the medium, a form he championed and fundamentally reshaped in the late 19th century. Toulouse-Lautrec utilized the technical flexibility of the lithographic process to capture the dynamic, often melancholic energy of Parisian nightlife. As a printmaker, Lautrec often employed stark graphic contrasts, expressive, calligraphic lines, and large, flat planes of color, characteristics inspired in part by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints but filtered through a uniquely French sensibility.

Created in France during the Fin de Siècle, the piece is characteristic of Toulouse-Lautrec’s preoccupation with the theater, focusing intimately on performers and marginalized figures within the cabarets and dance halls of Montmartre. Unlike his Impressionist colleagues, Lautrec sought to document life behind the stage curtains, rendering the unvarnished exhaustion and dramatic immediacy of his subjects with psychological depth. The work’s title and composition suggest a moment of conclusion or reflection, a common theme in his portrayal of the entertainment world.

The popularity and accessibility of Lautrec's prints, often originally produced as advertisements or illustrations, helped elevate the status of commercial art and modern graphics. This particular impression of The Last Song is held in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it serves as a critical example of the artist's graphic innovations. Reflecting its age and cultural importance, high-quality images of this foundational work, alongside other major prints by Toulouse-Lautrec, are now commonly available through public domain collections.