Aristide Bruant Dans son Cabaret

1893

37 1/4 x 53 3/8 in /
94.0 x 134.6 cm

Key stone printed in olive-green, color stones in black, red and brown
Commissioned by Aristide Bruant
Printed by Imp. Charles Verneau, Paris

This state was designed to be over-printed with text advertising the singer Aristide Bruant, who commissioned the poster. No singer at the time was better known than Bruant, a strong, forceful, and in many ways vulgar entertainer of intimate cabarets - the kind of places where fashionable society went "slumming" for their thrills. Lautrec catches this brutal quality of the performer and the disdain with which he treated his audiences by having him show us the broad of his back, with the red scarf forming an exclamation point. The pose itself thus makes a complete, self-contained statement.

References: Wittrock P9a, Adriani 12, Adhemar 15