FROM THE PUBLISHER

Part Two Of Two Parts

The bohemian life forever fascinates. What more colorful character could conventional folk follow into this underground world than Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec? A dwarf in stature, he lives as a mythological figure in our minds.

A debauched aristocrat and a cabaret painter, Lautrec was a tortured man. Family letters and insiders' anecdotes reveal how his free-spirited life fostered and eventually destroyed his astonishing discipline as a brilliant artist. Lautrec self-destructed. He died at 36, probably from a combination of drinking and syphilis. But he had immortalized the world of dancers, clowns, cabaret performers, pimps and prostitutes of fin de siecle Paris.