Theophile steinlen biography

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (November 10, 1859 – December 13, 1923), was a Swiss-born French Art Nouveau painter and printmaker.
Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, was a Swiss-born French Art Nouveau painter and printmaker.
Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (1859 – 1923) He was born in Lausanne.

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«One of the first artists that visitors encounter upon entering the exhibition World War I and the Visual Arts is Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen. The three works on display—Mobilization, The Exodus, and Program for the Matiné Extraordinaire—represent the range of imagery Steinlen produced during wartime and a significant shift in the artist's practice. Like many of his vanguard contemporaries, Steinlen's artistic focus in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was centered on leftist social commentary. However, as the devastation of World War I emerged across Europe, the urgency of the human effects of war moved to the forefront of his priorities.»

Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Steinlen moved to Paris in 1881 at the age of 21. He settled in Montmartre, an area in the north of the city where many ex-patriots, artists, and working-class people lived. Following the 1881 lifting of censorship in France and the passing of the Law on the Freedom of the Press, the production of politically focused artistic and literary ephemera flourished. From journals, periodica

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Théophile-Alexandre STEINLEN

Lausanne 1859 - Paris 1923

Biography

A native of Lausanne, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen began his artistic career as a designer of printed fabrics. In 1881 he moved to Paris, settling in Montmartre, and there began to frequent the literary cabaret known as Le Chat Noir, founded by a fellow Swiss expatriate, Rodolphe Salis. It was at Le Chat Noir that Steinlen met and befriended writers such as Paul Verlaine and the artists Jean-Louis Forain, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Louis Anquetin, Henry Somm, Adolphe Willette, Félix Valotton and Emmanuel Poiré, known as Caran d’Ache, among others. The artists of Le Chat Noir established something of a private club or society of aesthetes, and Steinlen was soon contributing illustrations to the associated journal Le Chat Noir. The success of these set him on the road to becoming one of the foremost illustrators in Paris at the turn of the century. At times using the pseudonym ‘Jean Caillou’, Steinlen submitted drawings to other satirical publications, including Le Mirliton and, from 1891 onwards, Gil Blas

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Painter, sculptor, printmaker, and illustrator Theophile Alexandre Steinlen was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1859. Following studies at the University of Lausanne he took a design internship at a textile mill in Mulhouse, France. Soon thereafter, on the advice of painter Francois Bocion, he relocated with his wife Emilie to Monmartre, Paris, where he quickly became ensconced in the burgeoning Belle Epoque artists' scene.

Beginning in the early 1890s he exhibited at the Salon des Independants and gained a favorable reputation as a painter, focusing on rural landscapes, nudes, and still lifes, as well as the daily lives of Monmartre's working class and poorer residents. In addition to his work in oil painting and fine prints, Steinlen was a popular graphic artist and poster designer, creating some of the most recognized Art Nouveau poster ads of the times, among them posters for Le Chat Noir and Compagnie Francaise des Chocolate. A prolific illustrator, he also contributed hundreds of works to the publications Le Rire, Gil Blas, L'Assiette as Beurre,