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Dimensions: 168.7 by 207cm., 66 3/8 by 81 1/2 in.
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Provenance: Estate of the artist
Lucien Mainssieux, Paris
Albert Loeb, Paris
Galerie Maurice Malingue, Paris
Galerie René Drouet (Sylvie Blatas), Paris
Albert Loeb & Krugier, New York
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York
Revson Collection, New York
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1979
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Exhibited:
Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario & Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Vincent Van Gogh and the Birth of Cloisonism, 1981, no. 86, illustrated in colour in the catalogue (titled The Dance Hall at the Moulin Rouge)
New Jersey, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, The Circle of Toulouse-Lautrec, An Exhibition of the Artist and his close associates, 1985-86, no. 12, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts & New York, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, Pleasures of Paris: Daumier to Picasso, 1991, no. 122
Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario (on loan), 1979-2001
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Notes: To be included in the Louis Anquetin archives at Galerie Brame & Lorenceau, Paris.
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
Au Moulin Rouge is a large scale depiction of the world famous cabaret that captures the bohemian and risqué ambiance of the café-concert in a vibrant, modernist style. Anquetin had begun to frequent the Moulin Rouge shortly after it opened in 1889, and together with his fellow artists Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Emile Bernard, became a regular at the cabaret throughout the 1890s. This work is Anquetin's largest and most compositionally complex work on this theme, and also is one of the final works from the distinctive Cloisonist phase of his artistic development. Louis Anquetin's arrival in Paris in 1882 coincided with the rise of Montmartre as the defining quartier of Paris and the cultural centre of the new republic. The relaxation of the censorship laws in 1881 had released a flood of subversive creativity that manifested itself in the emergence of cabaret society and a raft of satirical magazines and posters. Montmartre, situated on the boundary of respectable central Paris and the proletarian suburbs, became a Mecca for irreverent bohemians, and the ostentatious exuberance of their lifestyle was itself a caricature of the social conventions and moral pieties of French bourgeois society. Cabarets such as Le Chat Noir and Le Moulin Rouge provided a glamorous showcase for this anti-establishment conclave, publicising the subversive mix of glamour, eroticism and commerce that made up 'the spirit of Montmartre'. Due to his striking appearance and painterly facility, Louis Anquetin became a prominent figure in the artistic and literary avant garde in Montmartre in the 1880s. Together with Toulouse-Lautrec, Bernard and Vincent van Gogh, whom he met whilst studying in the studio of Fernand Cormon, the young artist broke away from the naturalistic conventions of their master's studio and sought to develop an art capable of representing la vie moderne. When Anquetin's work was exhibited at the Salon des Independents in 1888, he was hailed by his old school friend Edouard Dujardin as the leader of a new movement labelled Cloisonnism, a moniker derived from the medieval practice of firing ground glass that had been placed in a metal framework. This new style adopted flat regions of vibrant colour and thick, black contour outlines, inspired both by a study of Japanese prints and ideas being expounded by the literary symbolists, who frequented the same cafes and engaged in passionate debates with the artists of Anquetin's circle. The present work is a marvellous example of Anquetin's unique style during this seminal period of his artistic development; the strong black outlines giving the composition a strong figurative element, which is allied with a daring colour palette intended to evoke the dissolute ambiance of the dance hall. The composition is related to Toulouse-Lautrec's 1890 work, The Rehearsal of the New Girls at the Moulin Rouge, with the one obvious difference being the central character, the dancer Jane Avril, who is taken from a gouache study, later made into a poster also by Toulouse-Lautrec. Jane Avril was one of the stars of the café-concert, who was noted both for her sensual dancing and her rather aloof, haughty demeanour, imparting what the writer and dandy Arthur Symons called an 'air of depraved virginity'. Unlike many of the other 'celebrity' dancers of the time, Avril was well-informed and educated, and regularly attended the studios of avant-garde artists. Au Moulin Rouge was one of the last works that Anquetin was to create in a modernist style. As early as the winter of 1890 he had returned to the study of classical art, and by 1892-3 he had begun to abandon his experimental style in favour of creating allegorical works inspired by Rubens, Titian and Tintoretto. Thus Au Moulin Rouge can be seen as an exuberant finale to the Montmartre years, after which Anquetin abandoned both his bohemian lifestyle and the experimental modernism of his youth.
