Toulouse-Lautrec at São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP)

Abstract

This project intends to analyse the artistic trajectory of Toulouse-Lautrec as a perspective for a study of the eleven artworks that make up the collection of the artist at the São Paulo Museum of Art Assis Chateaubriand (MASP). The research proposes to examine the construction of MASP's collection and its context, in order to understand the value of this collection in the Brazilian art. My aim is to contribute to the studies of Brazilian heritage related to the construction of the art collections in main museums, their processes and their cultural importance in crucial moments in the history of Brazil. The convergence of Toulouse-Lautrec's artworks varies from the mundane issues of choice by Édouard Manet, passes through weak stroke of oil paint that simulates pastel by Edgar Degas, and arrives to the twentieth century with the representations of the Futurist movement of Umberto Boccioni or through the surface thought of Pablo Picasso. This Lautrec's collection at MASP has a peculiarity: it composes the entire poetic journey of the artist's career, encompassing more than twenty years of production.