Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

(24 November 1864 - 9 September 1901)

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (24 November 1864 - 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draftsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the decadent and theatrical life of fin de siecle Paris yielded an oeuvre of provocative images of modern life.

He was born in Albi, Tarn in the Midi-Pyrenees region of France, the firstborn child of Comte Alphonse and Comtesse Adele de Toulouse-Lautrec. An aristocratic family (descendants of the Counts of Toulouse) that had recently fallen on hard times, the Toulouse-Lautrecs were feeling the effects of the inbreeding of past generations; the Comte and Comtesse themselves were first cousins, and Henri suffered from a number of congenital health conditions attributed to this tradition of inbreeding (see below). A younger brother was born to the family on 28 August 1867, but died the following year. (From Wikipedia)