Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life by Julia Frey Weidenfeld & Nicolson $300 JULIA Frey is the first biographer to have access to all painter Henri Toulouse-Lautrec's extant correspondence and this book has been 10 years in the making. It is worth the wait.
Without the French Revolution, Lautrec and his family would probably have held high office in the Bourbon court. Even though the aristocracy was in decline by the time he was born in 1864, his family was still wealthy and his father held the hereditary title of Count.
At first, Henry - the spelling his mother, Adele, preferred - appeared to be a healthy baby. It was only when he tried to walk that she realised something was wrong.
As Lautrec grew older, his disabilities became more apparent. His bones did not develop properly and his sinuses became malformed. By adolescence, his lower lip protruded causing a drool, his nose ran constantly and his stunted, crippled legs were dragged along in a painful gait, made possible only with a walking stick.
Lautrec bore the pain with a stoicism he was to show throughout his life. He was regularly confined to bed, often for weeks, as part of a quack ''cure'' or because of injury. To occupy himself he took up several hobbies. He also began to draw, mostly animals.
Later, he and his mother moved to Paris and there Lautrec studied at Rene Princeteau's studio and then with Leon Bonnat, one of France's most famous portrait painters. He finally settled with Fernand Piestre Cormon, in Montmartre. One of his fellow students was Van Gogh.
