Being a true student, i took the opportunity to get in free by dressing up moulin rouge style with my friend Claire. Despite catching the attention of possibly every tourist and londoner alike on embankment, it was fun dressing up like a can can dancer. Inside the gallery we seemed the minority that actually dressed up and hilariously had some stranger ask to take our picture while we played dominoes- one of the events within the exhibition. The Art itself was mainly impressionist, including paintings but mainly lithograph prints both in colour or in black and white. My favourites were the large portraits on brown paper of Jane Avril. It shows how much advertising has changed in a century. There's a very personal feeling to the these posters compared to the commercialised spreads you see on the billboards nowadays.
Interestingly it also gave background knowledge on the dancer Jane Avril, who actually learnt to dance whilst inhabited in a mental institute for women in Paris which held a "blas des folles" (ball of the mad) annually. The exhibition included some the of the doctor's drawings of the patient's fits which may i warn are really distressing to view.
Toulouse-Lautrec drew a number of women but Jane Avril is definitely his favourite muse, drawing her both dancing and in her private life.
The exhibition also held a number of different shows throughout the evening including a Can-an dance demonstration, which unfortunately I missed after getting lost. I would definitely recommend it for an quiet evening out for both young and old.
and to finish here's a photo of me all dressed up haha!
