Watch The Great Masters of Painting Season 1 Episode 9 Online

During his adolescence, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec suddenly stopped growing because of a bone disease and two falls from a horse that left him deformed. He then began to paint and draw and moved to Paris in 1882 to perfect his knowledge of art. He immersed himself in impressionism and became friends with Edgar Degas and Vincent Van Gogh. He frequented cabarets, notably the Moulin Rouge, and immortalized them in his paintings as well as on his posters (Moulin rouge, La Goulue, 1891). He also painted theaters, cafés-concerts and brothels (Au salon de la rue des Moulins, 1894) whose characters he captured on the spot. He became an emblematic figure of Parisian nights. Alcoholism and syphilis put an end to his fragile health in 1901, when he became paralyzed. He died on September 9 of the same year.