Friday, September 17, 2021 – WE ALL, MOSTLY ALL LOVE CATS, ESPECIALLY STEINLEN’S IMAGES

By admin

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

The

470th Edition

THE ART OF 

THEOPHILE ALEXANDRE

STEINLEN

CAT ART

La tournée du Chat Noir de Rodolphe Salis (1896)

Born in Lausanne, Switzerland,[1] Steinlen studied at the University of Lausanne before taking a job as a designer trainee at a textile mill in Mulhouse in eastern France. In his early twenties he was still developing his skills as a painter when he and his wife Emilie were encouraged by the painter François Bocion to move to the artistic community in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris.[2] Once there, Steinlen was befriended by the painter Adolphe Willette who introduced him to the artistic crowd at Le Chat Noir that led to his commissions to do poster art for the cabaret owner/entertainer, Aristide Bruant and other commercial enterprises.

Café à Léon (1921)

In the early 1890s, Steinlen’s paintings of rural landscapes, flowers, and nudes were being shown at the Salon des Indépendants. His 1895 lithograph titled Les Chanteurs des Rues was the frontispiece to a work entitled Chansons de Montmartre published by Éditions Flammarion with sixteen original lithographs that illustrated the Belle Époque songs of Paul Delmet. Five of his posters were published in Les Maîtres de l’Affiche.

His permanent home, Montmartre and its environs, was a favorite subject throughout Steinlen’s life and he often painted scenes of some of the harsher aspects of life in the area. His daughter Colette was featured in much of his work.[3] In addition to paintings and drawings, he also did sculpture on a limited basis, most notably figures of cats that he had great affection for as seen in many of his paintings.[2] Steinlen included cats in many of his illustrations, and even published a book of his designs, “Dessins Sans Paroles Des Chats.”[4]

In “Compagnie Française des Chocolats et des Thès,” Steinlen includes his wife and daughter in the illustration.

Recumbent Cat

Steinlen became a regular contributor to Le Rire and Gil Blas magazines plus numerous other publications including L’Assiette au Beurre and Les Humouristes, a short-lived magazine he and a dozen other artists jointly founded in 1911.[5] Between 1883 and 1920, he produced hundreds of illustrations, a number of which were done under a pseudonym so as to avoid political problems because of their harsh criticisms of societal ills. His art influenced the work of other artists, including Pablo Picasso

Théophile Steinlen died in 1923 in Paris and was buried in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre. Today, his works can be found at many museums around the world including at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., United States. A stone monument by Pierre Vannier was created for Steinlen in 1936; it is located in Square Joël Le Tac in Paris.[7]

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FRIDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

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THURSDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

THE WELFARE ISLAND BRIDGE
There was no Main Street when the bridge opened in 1957.

This was the original Welfare Island entrance and exit ramp.  At that time, there was no Main Street.  All traffic was one way on the peripheral roads.  When you entered the island, you went north on the Manhattan side of the island toward Coler.  If you wanted to go to Goldwater you had to make a turn on one of the cross island roads, go to the road on the Queens side of the island and travel south.  In this photo you can also see the FDNY training site, which used to occupy the site on Welfare Island before it was moved to Randall’s Island.  The large concrete globes in front of the Visitor’s Center came from the FDNY site.

#THANKS, ED LITCHER FOR THE ABOVE
GLORIA HERMAN, NINA LUBLIN AND ALEXIS VILLAFANE GOT IT RIGHT!

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff

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