Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: Quotes about drawing

“I'm very much alone all day, I read a litle but, in the long run, it gives me a headache. I draw and paint as much as I can, indeed till my hand grows tired, and when night begins to fall I hope Jeanne d'Armagnac [his cousin] will come to my bedside. She does sometimes, and cheers me up and plays with me, and I listen to her talk, without daring to look at her. She is so tall and so beautiful! And I am neither tall nor beautiful.”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

The previous Summer, at Barèges, while he lay with his leg in plaster, Lautrec had often been visited in the evening by his cousin, Jeanne d'Armagnac
Source: 1879-1884, T-Lautrec, by Henri Perruchot, p. 53 - written note in Nice, Winter of 1880

Beauty , Hope , Reading , Drawing

“I have tried to draw realistically and not ideally… It may be a defect, for I have no mercy on warts, and I like adorning them with wanton hairs, rounding them off and giving them a bright surface… - A painter in embryo….- Write me a line soon. I am feverish with anxiety.”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Source: 1879-1884, T-Lautrec, by Henri Perruchot, p. 60 - quote in a letter to his friend Etienne Devismes, Summer of 1881
his friend Etienne Devismes had just finished a novel 'Cocotte', and asked Lautrec to illustrate it. Lautrec made twenty-three pen and ink drawings and sent them to Devismes with a letter

Drawing

“There are two young Englishmen in the next rooms to ours who are superb; their two sisters, looking like umbrellas, are here too, dressed in pink, with a little friend in blue with red hair. She is a type I have tried to draw on horseback but have not succeeded.”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Source: 1879-1884, T-Lautrec, by Henri Perruchot, p. 56 - in a letter, Winter 1881 from Nice, where he stayed with his mother

Sister , Drawing

“I could never have believed that such kindness existed: to receive my wretched drawings and then thank me into the bargain. And you need not be so scrupulous about my drawings. Just use those you like.... But, I am madly, crazily happy at the thought that your prose [Devismes novel 'Cocotte'], like so many fireworks, will frame my daubs, that you should have offered me a helping hand on the arduous road towards getting known…”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Quote from Lautrec's letter, after he received Devismes' letter full of praise for the 23 illustrations he had sent
Source: 1879-1884, T-Lautrec, by Henri Perruchot, p. 61 - in a letter to his friend Etienne Devismes, Summer of 1881

Help , Drawing , Happiness