Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life (Phoenix Giants) [Paperback]

Julia Frey (Author)

Book Description

Series: Phoenix Giants | Publication Date: October 1, 1995

Debauched aristocrat, cabaret painter, accidental dwarf? Julia Frey's definitive, superbly researched biography strips away the myth of Toulouse-Lautrec to reveal the tortured man beneath. This is a remarkable and compelling portrait, featuring 135 photos and illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"I expect to burn myself out by the time I'm forty," vowed Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), whose alcoholism, sexual debauchery with prostitutes and probable syphilis led to his death in 1901 at age 36. In the fullest portrait of the great French artist to date (superbly illustrated with 84 photographs and 50 color plates), Frey traces Toulouse-Lautrec's self-destructiveness to psychic pain resulting from congenital dwarfism and the conflicts of his parents-first cousins from a wealthy, aristocratic, inbred family-who used him as a pawn in their endless power struggle. The combination of a pious, overprotective, controlling mother and a grandiose, anti-clerical, manic-depressive father produced an ambivalent son who sought refuge in art. In oils, lithographs and posters, Lautrec penetrated people's masks and exposed undercurrents of despair, poverty and exploitation beneath the Belle Epoque's superficial gaiety. Drawing on hundreds of previously untapped letters and family documents, Frey, who teaches art and literature at the University of Colorado, has produced a vivid, engrossing, often astonishing biography that delves into Toulouse-Lautrec's obsession with gems and hygiene, his mania for publicity, his love-hate relationship with his mother and troubled relations with other women.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In this readable biography of French painter and poster artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), which draws on primary sources and family letters, the focus is on biography rather than art criticism. Toulouse-Lautrec, best known for his posters in Art Nouveau style of cabaret performers, was of aristocratic stock; neither of his parents comes off well, and the author casts his life as a reaction to both abandonment by a manic-depressive father and domination by a rigidly pious mother. This psychological approach works well on the personal level. Frey (Univ. of Colorado, Boulder), who has studied the artist for a decade, has a solid command of the literature, though her style can be overly familiar at times. Recommended for general collections. (Notes and color plates not seen.)-Jack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Lib.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Orion Publishing (October 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857993632
• ISBN-13: 978-1857993639
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #685,885 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Julia Bloch Frey (1943- ) was born in Louisville, Kentucky. She attended Antioch College, the University of Texas at Austin and Yale University, where she earned a PhD in French literature. She taught at a number of universities, including Yale, Brown, Sarah Lawrence, the Université de Paris 1, and for twenty-five years at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her first book, "Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life" won the Pen Center USA West Literary Award in nonfiction. It was chosen one of the best books of the year by Publisher's Weekly, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography. The New York Times named it a 'notable book'. In the UK it was chosen one of the 'best books of the year' by the London Spectator and the Yorkshire Evening Press, and as the best art biography of the year by Apollo Magazine. Her newest book, "Balcony View" is her personal memoir of living at Ground Zero for six months with her late husband, novelist Ronald Sukenick. Frey now has re-married, lives in France and writes full time.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Borrowing heavily from Perruchot, March 30, 2000

By 

Richard S. Corzatt (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life (Phoenix Giants) (Paperback)

I read Frey's work on Lautrec and enjoyed it very much, but then read Henri Perruchot's work, published in 1962, and felt like I was rereading Frey's book. This leads me to believe that Frey used Perruchot's work as an outline and fleshed it out with the originally unpublished letters of Lautrec to his family.

If you want the definitive work on Lautrec, find an old copy of Henri Perruchot's work, which is more consise. If you can't find a copy, Frey's work is good, but more drawn out in unnecessary details.

I should comment that the great thing about Frey's book is the reprint of Lautrec's work, which I continually referred to while reading.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb! Frey brings Toulouse-Lautrec to life in her brilliant book..., December 30, 2005

By 

C. Fitting (Tucson, Arizona) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Henri Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life (Hardcover)

Briefly, what Julia Frey manages to do is to bring the soul and genius of Henry Toulous-Lautrec to life. Compounding fact on fact, she slowly reveals the life and times of a complicated son, man, artist and genius, who lived in a major transitional time period as social classes were dissolving and artistic trends and beliefs were being wrenched from their moorings. This 'little man'-who evokes our pathos as well as love-broke down more walls than any army could have, and he did it with style, guts and humor. It's an intense journey which could easily bog down in the details, yet I came away feeling like I knew his soul, could feel his deepest despair and witness his drive, ambition and frustation. What a marvel! His art is illuminated by Frey in a fresh way as she helps explain how he almost single-handedly invented posters-as-art, but also why he was a brilliant painter who created a style that was bold and unique.

What Frey manages to do is to humanize Toulous-Lautrec so that he's not a cartoon character, not the oddity that he's often reduced to. This is a brave man, an honorable man, a complictaed man who came from a complicated family. Bravo for them for sharing these letters, and for Julia Frey for putting the puzzle together afresh with such respectful illumination. It will break your heart but it will lift you higher. And you will feel like you lived in Paris in the late 1800s with the most phenomenal docent...one of the greatest artists of all time, Henry Toulouse-Lautrec!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best biography of Toulouse-Lautrec by far, December 1, 2008

By 

JB Nolet (Paris, France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life (Phoenix Giants) (Paperback)

I bought this biography because it was assigned in an art history course. But to my surprise, it's a great read. I like it that it's totally credible. I can see why it won a literary prize. It gives us a new take on the "alcoholic, dwarfed, aristocratic genius" -- I mean this artist is so well-known that his work is on ashtrays and dish towels. The book is really beautifully written and meticulously documented. Frey is focused on getting us to take a real look at Toulouse-Lautrec's life, the world he lived in, and his art. It reads like a novel, but it is based on hundreds of previously unpublished family letters. One of its strengths is that it straightens out the half-truths, invented "facts" and self-serving lies written by other biographers and art historians. Although the text isn't cluttered up with footnotes or little superscript numbers, at the end you find notes (by chapter and page) some of which are hilarious, an index that includes useful things like identities and dates for all the people mentioned in the book, and a complete bibliography. It's extremely useful if you're trying to any kind of serious research.

Although it's over 300 p. long, it has three "quick start" features that I found very enjoyable. The book is written in short anecdotal sections, so it's easy to read just a few pages at a time. She tells you a story, then there's a break, then she tells you another one. I also liked it that at the top of each page, the year is printed, so you know where you are when you pick it up again. Actually, once I got into it, I read the whole thing at once, over a few days. And finally, the current edition has a great, short introduction telling how to "read" autobiographical references in Toulouse-Lautrec's art. It would be worth photocopying and taking to a museum or an exhibition.