Encore Boston Harbor announced last Friday that it will be the lead sponsor and supporter of a unique partnership between the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, (MFA) and the Boston Public Library (BPL) – one that will bring a major exhibit by renowned French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to the museum and give unique access to Everett residents.
The sponsorship is the beginning of a broader civic partnership between Encore Boston Harbor and the MFA, including free admission to the museum for residents of Encore’s host city of Everett throughout the run of Toulouse-Lautrec and the Stars of Paris. Encore Boston Harbor’s 4,500 employees will also receive free admission to the MFA throughout 2019. In addition, local residents and Encore employees will have access to several family-friendly, museum-curated events.
“The MFA has always played a leading role in cultivating Greater Boston’s long-standing appreciation for the arts and has placed itself at the forefront again by organizing the historic Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit and presenting it for all to enjoy,” said Elaine P. Wynn, co-founder of Wynn Resorts, which owns Encore Boston Harbor. “As a long-standing patron of the arts, I am impressed with the breadth of the MFA’s programming and pleased to see Encore Boston Harbor partnering with this important civic institution.”
Toulouse-Lautrec and the Stars of Paris will open at the MFA in April 2019, and will include more than 200 of Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters, prints and paintings that are currently being housed at the MFA and the BPL. More than 100 pieces in the exhibit will come from the BPL’s collection, making this one of the largest loans of artwork ever made by the library to a single institution.
Showcasing Toulouse-Lautrec’s acclaimed bold colors and radical compositions, the exhibit will explore the artist’s attention to the stars and entertainments of 19th-century Montmartre, the bohemian center of Parisian nightlife.
The exhibit will examine how Toulouse-Lautrec pushed his art in new directions to portray the celebrity culture of his time — equally fascinated, much like today, with the performers’ personal lives as with the roles they played. Using brazen colors and expressive lines, the artist depicted the defining gestures, costumes and expressions of the celebrities of the day, many of whom were his personal friends. His images of performers—including cabaret stars Yvette Guilbert and Aristide Bruant, dancers Jane Avril and Loïe Fuller, and actress Marcelle Lender —contributed to their fame. Additionally, the exhibition will incorporate works by Toulouse-Lautrec’s contemporaries Edgar Degas, Honoré Daumier, Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard and others.
“We are proud to partner with the Boston Public Library to bring together these two great collections of work by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,” said Matthew Teitelbaum, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the MFA. “It’s exciting to be able to bring to life the spectacles of modern Paris and offer the public unprecedented access to works of art in new ways.”
Throughout the month of June 2019, BPL cardholders can sample MFA membership by presenting their library card at any ticket desk to receive free admission to the museum (for two adults and up to six children per visit). The collaboration and sponsorship will also feature a range of public programming offered at the MFA and the BPL throughout the run of the exhibition, including introductory talks in English, Spanish and Mandarin led by MFA guides at the library’s 25 neighborhood branches, as well as family-friendly activities taking place at the museum.