Between Painting and Poster: Artistic and Cultural Hybridity in Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's Panels for "La Goulue"

My thesis focuses on Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's pendant paintings titled La danse au Moulin Rouge (Dance at the Moulin Rouge) and La danse mauresque (The Moorish Dance). These two works, collectively known as Les panneaux pour la baraque de La Goulue à la Foire du Trône (Panels for the fun fair booth of La Goulue at the Foire du Trône), have been underemphasized by scholars in part because they do not adhere to the hierarchies of value that have been established between fine art and the applied arts; nor do they support the much-mythologized image of Lautrec. Although Toulouse-Lautrec's commercial accomplishments are widely recognized by scholars today, and contribute to his mythic persona as a bohemian artist steeped in the culture of Montmartre, his paintings continue to be privileged as the more "authentic" portion of his artistic output. Furthermore, the commissioning of these works by the cancaneuse "La Goulue" (Louise Weber) has also inhibited their study. A woman known for licentiousness on- and off-stage, La Goulue cannot be considered a conventionally feminist figure, and therefore has been denied the agency accorded to fellow popular dancers, such as Jane Avril and Loïe Fuller, who were also depicted by Toulouse-Lautrec and have received more scholarly attention. My study provides a comprehensive account of the panels, encompassing a range of questions raised by the works themselves and the biographical and historical contexts that produced them. Products of collaboration, the panels are evidence of La Goulue and Toulouse-Lautrec's symbiotic relationship, one necessitated by the need to individualize and sensationalize oneself in order to achieve and maintain fame both within the Parisian art world and the entertainment industry.