Toulouse-Lautrec and the Spirit of Montmartre: Cabarets, Humor and the Avant- Garde, 1875-1905

Montmartre in the heyday of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) comes alive again in the new exhibition at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. That Paris neighborhood's cabarets, music halls, cafes and streets as well as its artists, musicians and entertainers are revisited in more than 400 works -- books, journals, prints, posters, drawings, watercolors, shadow theater silhouettes, and various ephemera -- by 19th century Montmartre's avant-garde community. Unique to this presentation, 70 works by Toulouse-Lautrec, 65 of which are culled from the collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.