38 Facts About Maxime Dethomas

Maxime Dethomas was a regular contributor to the Impressionistes et Symbolistes, and a founding committee member of the Salon d'Automne.

Maxime Dethomas's works appear in many important national collections, including the Musee d'Orsay, the Hermitage Museum and the National Gallery of Art.

Maxime Dethomas is remembered for his close friendship with the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, his brother in-law Ignacio Zuloaga and his association with Les Nabis and other important Post-Impressionist and Symbolist artists and writers.

Maxime Dethomas died in 1929 at the age of 61, and was buried at the Passy Cemetery, Paris.

Maxime Dethomas's family came from a long line of painter-printers on one side, and lawyers on the other.

Maxime Dethomas's father, Jean-Albert Dethomas, was an important Parisian politician and lawyer.

In 1887, Maxime Dethomas enrolled at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs at which he studied briefly, preferring instead to pass much of his time at the bookshop of the Revue Independante, a favourite haunt of young artists and writers run by Edouard Dujardin.

Disgruntled with his experiences at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, Maxime Dethomas began taking informal instruction at the private workshop of the young master, Henri Gervex.

Maxime Dethomas claimed that his inspiration was guided by artists of earlier generations, particularly Goya, Delacroix and Manet, but his individuality of style ensured he would "not be influenced in his work by any methods or thoughts other than his own".

Maxime Dethomas realised vigorous drawings, and some few oil paintings, showing portraits, cafe scenes, and urban landscapes of Italy and Spain.

Maxime Dethomas primarily worked with broad strokes in conte, graphite, charcoal and pastel, often enhanced by watercolour and the masterful use of the spatter brush, with drizzles and sprays of gouache reminiscent of Lautrec lithographs.

Maxime Dethomas engaged models from both within his social circle, as well as otherwise unremarkable characters from urban life, searching out peculiarities of appearance that betrayed the social facades of the fin de siecle.

Maxime Dethomas was tall and stout, with a pallid complexion, the type of slightly fleshy giant who spent his nights making sketches in night clubs.

Maxime Dethomas had great difficulty staying awake after meals, which for him always had to be enormous.

Maxime Dethomas had a litter of pretty little Siamese cats that would climb all over me or play with my bare feet in a way that was often quite fierce.

Maxime Dethomas sketched, putting down a line on the paper or canvas with a steady hand, then he would get up, go and lie on the couch and fall asleep for at least an hour.

Degas, an avid supporter of Maxime Dethomas, spoke highly of his work asserting "it has weight".

Maxime Dethomas' art passed through the hands of many prominent art dealers including Jos Hessel, Galerie Durand-Ruel and Galerie Druet.

Maxime Dethomas is known to have had his works framed by the frame-maker Pierre Cluzel, and his successor, Louis Vivien.

In 1912, Maxime Dethomas was awarded the Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur for his contributions to French art.

From 1910 to 1913, Maxime Dethomas worked under Jacques Rouche during his tenure at the Theatre des Arts.

The inaugural production, Le Carnaval des Enfants, marked a major theatrical revolution by which Maxime Dethomas' settings accentuated line and colour, rather than a focus on painted detail and endless props.

Maxime Dethomas once wrote that above all else decor should be a good servant of the play and that a designer must get beyond a "painterly feel" to something more solid.

Calm and seemingly distant, Maxime Dethomas generally walked through life a discreet and unassuming character.

In subsequent years their travels continued, visiting exhibitions, museums and mutual friends or exploring towns such as Granville, Arromanches and Dinard, at which Maxime Dethomas had made use of a summerhouse.

Maxime Dethomas appears on the left-hand panel, looking down toward La Goulue.

At around the same period, Toulouse-Lautrec declared "I will capture your immobility in places of pleasure", and over the course of one and a half years, he made numerous preparatory sketches of Maxime Dethomas intended for a single painting, each taking anywhere from five to fifteen minutes to create.

Finally, an 1896 lithograph entitled Anna Held et Baldy features Maxime Dethomas, leering provocatively at the famous stage performer.

Eight days later, Maxime Dethomas writes again of yet another event that fell victim to Henri's drunkenness, this time a dinner at Goupil's.

When Maxime Dethomas learned of his friend's death, he wrote to his mentor Madame Bulteau, Friday, September 13,1901:.

Maxime Dethomas kept his wits to the end and declared that dying is no small thing, that it was mightily hard.

In 1895 Maxime Dethomas formed what would become a brief but significant friendship with the young writer, Jean de Tinan.

The difficulties thus managed by the goodwill of Maxime Dethomas, Ignacio returned to Paris in 1894.

Maxime Dethomas's considerable reach within the arts community would smooth his path to recognition and ultimately lead to several commissions from her network of expatriate Spanish-speaking habitues, most notably, the 1913 portrait of the writer Anna de Noailles, which would stand as one of Zuloaga's most important works.

The author Pierre Louys was a close companion of Maxime Dethomas and had collaborated with him on the first edition of Le Centaure in 1896.

Maxime Dethomas had a number of prominent writer-friends, one of which was Marcel Proust.

Maxime Dethomas made an important contribution to the renaissance of book production in France.

In conjunction with the release of the book, Maxime Dethomas held an exhibition of the book's artworks at the Galerie de l'Art Decoratif, which was both a popular and critical success.