Albany Fine Art : Théophile-Alexandre STEINLEN

Théophile-Alexandre STEINLEN

Swiss/French, 1859-1923

Steinlen Self Portrait

One of the foremost illustrators in Paris at the end of the 19thC, he had a significant influence on the artists of his time, particularly Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso, and created one of the defining images of the Art Nouveau era

Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen was an overtly political French painter and illustrator of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who produced some of the most famous posters of the Art Nouveau era, including Lait pur stérilisé de la Vingeanne (1894), Tournée du Chat Noir (1896) and the monumental La Rue: Affiches Charles Verneau (1896). As one of the foremost illustrators in Paris at the fin de siècle, Steinlen had a significant influence on the artists of his time: both Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864-1901) and Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) recognised their debt to his work.

Born in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1859, Steinlen (sometimes spelt ‘Steinlein’) was educated locally and at Lausanne University, which he left without taking a degree, in order to become an apprentice textile designer in Mulhouse, eastern France. He continued his studies at the Lausanne École Industrielle, where his professor, the painter François-Louis David Bocion (Swiss, 1828-1890), encouraged him to continue his studies in Paris, the epicentre of European art. As a result Steinlen and his young bride moved to Paris in 1881 and quickly established themselves in the Montmartre Quarter where they were to live for the rest of their lives.

Initially Steinlen earned his living as a technical draftsman. He soon met Dr Willette, the brother of the graphic humourist Adolphe-Léon Willette (French, 1857–1926), who introduced him to the avant-garde artistic and literary circle that congregated at the Caveau du Chat Noir (The Black Cat), a literary cabaret venue which had recently been opened by a fellow Swiss expatriate, Rodolphe Salis, in 1881.

Le Chat Noir and the magasine of the same name that Salis also founded were fresh, witty, satirical, political, literary and international and nearly everyone of intellectual, literary, artistic and theatrical consequence was associated with it in some way. Salis's promotional skills had made a reality of the exaggerated accounts of the cabaret in its own magasine, "The Chat Noir is the most extraordinary cabaret in the world. You rub shoulders with the most famous men of Paris, meeting there with foreigners from every corner of the world."

Here Steinlen met and became friends with the writer Emile Zola, the poet Jean Richepin, the writer and humourist Alphonse Allais, the composer Paul Delmet, the artists Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917), Jean-Louis Forain (French, 1852-1931), Louis Anquetin (French, 1861-1932), Henry Somm (French, 1844-1907), Félix Vallotton (Swiss/French, 1865–1925) and Caran d’Ache (pseudonym of Emmanuel Poiré, French, 1859-1909), the photographer Nadar (pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, French, 1820–1910) and, most importantly, the singer and songwriter Aristide Bruant whose lyrics reflected the argot of the poor, the worker, rogue, pimp and prostitute and appealed to Steinlen’s social conscience.

So it was an auspicious start for Steinlen when Salis invited him to contribute drawings to Le Chat Noir, in 1883, and his sensitive depictions of the everyday life of the ordinary people in Paris quickly gained him a reputation amongst a wide audience.

Despite being largely self-taught, from this time onwards Steinlen worked incessantly, producing thousands of illustrations and covers for magasines, books and sheet music, as well as etchings, lithographs and posters. His subjects were almost invariably life as it was lived by the common people of Paris - on the streets, in the cafés and dance halls, working, demonstrating or walking out.

Steinlen created his now-famous poster, Lait pur stérilisé de la Vingeanne in 1894 and held his first exhibition at La Bodinière in the same year. From 1893 he exhibited his paintings of rural landscapes, flowers and nudes at the Salon des Indépendants and regularly held exhibitions at the Salon des Humoristes.

From 1885 (-1896) he was the principal illustrator for Bruant’s journal Le Mirliton and for the various books containing his songs and monologues, including the two volumes of Dans La Rue (1888–95).

In 1886 Steinlen created one of the defining images of the Art Nouveau era, his poster, Tournée du Chat Noir. The blend of irreverence, humour and art that the poster encapsulated also symbolised one of the defining attributes of the Montmartre culture - and gave rise to the term, Chatnoiresque.

One of the reasons for the explosion of the poster as art during this fin de siècle period was the realisation amongst publishers and artists that the medium could successfully combine two apparently mutually-exclusive roles: advertising as art and art with a message.

Steinlen exemplified this (also in 1886) with his monumental poster, La Rue: Affiches Charles Verneau (The Street: Charles Verneau Posters) which was intended both to promote Charles Verneau’s poster company whilst also propagating art to the masses. At 2.34 x 3 metres (7ft 8in x 9ft 10in) it was the largest lithographic colour poster yet to have been printed and, from an artistic point of view, by far the best. Its subject matter reflected Steinlen’s preoccupations, depicting a cross-section of the capital’s diverse society, not from the perspective of the grand boulevards of the Champs-Élysées or the Jardin des Tuileries but rather the cosmopolitan milieu and backstreets of Montmartre. Its life-size figures included a little girl wearing a red dress (Steinlen’s daughter, Colette), her nanny, a young laundress, workmen and members of the bourgeoisie in a finely balanced composition. A second poster was planned, to be called The Boulevard, but was never produced.

Steinlen continued to illustrate for many radical publications and he worked for more than 30 in his career. In 1891, for example, he was commissioned by the popular weekly magasine Gil Blas Illustre, where his output was prodigious, creating some 700 front and back cover drawings for this magasine alone; in 1893-1894 for the weekly publication Le Chambard Socialiste, where, with his natural social conscience reinforced from reading Zola’s novel L’Assommoir (the title being variously translated as The Gin Palace, The Drinking Den, The Dram Shop, Drink, The Drunkard and The Trap, 1877), he was encouraged to portray his radical convictions, and his biting images of capitalists, policemen and struggling workers are some his best work. Other magazines to which he contributed included Le Journal, Le Locataire, L’Assommoir, Le Croquis, Rire, La Revue Illustrée, Le Canard Sauvage and L’Assiette au Beurre.

By 1894 Steinlen was already famous within France and he was rapidly gaining an international reputation.

His 1895 lithograph Les Chanteurs des Rues was the frontispiece to a work entitled Chansons de Montmartre and contained 16 original lithographs illustrating the Belle Epoque songs of Paul Delmet. Montmartre remained a favourite subject for Steinlen’s work throughout his life and he often painted scenes of some of the harsher aspects of life in the area. In addition to paintings and drawings, he also undertook sculpture, most notably figures of cats, for which he had a great affection, as evidenced in many of his works.

In 1898, he produced the illustrations for La Feuille on the Dreyfus affair, the most celebrated scandal of the era; in 1900 a monumental advertisement for the stage adaptation of Zola’s novel L’Assommoir; in 1911 he was one of the 13 co-founders of the unfortunately short-lived journal Les Humoristes; and, in 1913, he created another huge poster for Le Locataire (The Tenant). Steinlen was morally anti-war and, during the First World War (1914-18), he created numerous images evoking its horror and tragedy.

In a career spanning some 40 years, Steinlen produced thousands of illustrations and images, some of which he published under various pseudonyms, such as Jean Caillou, Treelan, Pierre and

Petit Pierre, in order to avoid possible political repercussions due to the harsh criticisms of society’s ills that he portrayed. His depictions of the harsh realities of life for the urban underprivileged earned him the soubriquet, "the Millet of the Streets", after the Socialist revolutionary artist Jean-François Millet (French, 1814-1875), who had been the first painter to portray the hardships and dignity of the rural poor.

Steinlen became a French citizen in 1901 and died in Paris in 1923.