Toulouse-Lautrec:
May Milton
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THE "English Miss," May Milton performed for only one season in Paris, on a small, undistinguished stage, then departed for New York never to be heard from again. She is remembered entirely because of Lautrec's art, immortalized as the rather nightmarish head emerging from the corner of his painting At the Moulin Rouge (1892-95, The Art Institute of Chicago).

According to her critics, she was short on both beauty and talent. Lautrec supposedly intended this riveting blue poster for her tour of the United States, as a pendant to the red poster of her lover, May Belfort. He uses the white of the paper as a positive shape, sparsely defined with brush outlines and four directional strokes, while pattern is confined to the swirling underside of May's skirt.

May Milton
1895; Desloge 95; W P17b; D 356
Lithograph in five colors. 31 1/2 x 23 1/2 inches.
Text by the artist.
Gift of the Baldwin M. Baldwin Foundation, 1987:62

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