“What is left out only affirms the existing”
A talk in Budapest with art historian Danièle Devynck, director of the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, Albi
MúzeumCafé 42.
The Graphic Art Collection of Budapest’s Museum of Fine Arts holds 240 works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. With this quantity as well as its quality it is of international significance. Thus the selection of 170 works that can be still seen until the 24 August is complemented only by five posters loaned by the Albertina, and the Fine Arts Museum’s painting by Toulouse-Lautrec. The world of the Parisian Belle Époque comes to life at the exhibition and visitors can view and hear the dancers, singers and actors depicted on the lithographs in contemporary films and recordings. The Palais de la Berbie, a fortified and several times extended and converted palace, was the seat of the Bishop of Albi for centuries following the Crusades. Today it houses the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec. It opened in 1922 and is the largest collection of the artist’s paintings, drawings and posters created from his early childhood until his death. The town of Albi received a large number of works after Lautrec’s death. That was thanks to the artist’s mother, who gathered all the paintings and studies that remained in Lautrec’s studio and donated them to Albi so that a museum would be established in the palace. Art historian Danièle Devynck first researched the art of the Middles Ages and the Renaissance, then later became an expert of the Belle Époque. She has written 68 exhibition catalogues and monographs, plus a further 110 published items, which have been translated into six languages. Furthermore, she is the co-author and editor of several publications. In addition to her books about Toulouse-Laut-rec, her other works include The Musée Toulouse-Lautrec and Connaître Albi. Since 1987 Devynck has been the chief curator and director of Albi’s Toulouse-Lautrec Museum.