Théophile Alexandre Steinlen

Art Nouveau illustrator, printmaker, and painter Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen is beloved for his stylized renderings of cats and the cancan. Steinlen famously produced posters and illustrations for Le Chat Noir, a Paris club known as the first modern cabaret, in the 1880s and 1890s. Born in 1859, Steinlen studied design for two years in his Swiss hometown at the University of Lausanne. He relocated to Paris’s bohemian Montmartre district in 1881, where he befriended artists like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Félix Vallotton, and Adolphe Léon Willette. Steinlen gained further recognition through showing at the Salon des Indépendants in the 1890s. His oil-on-canvas Le Coup de vent (Gust of Wind) (ca. 1895–96) realized $406,285 at auction in 2007. Steinlen’s work is held in collections including the State Hermitage Museum, the Musée d’Orsay, the Museum of Modern Art, and the National Gallery of Art.