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(b Lausanne, 10 Nov 1859; d Paris, 13 Dec 1923)
French illustrator, printmaker, painter and sculptor, of
Swiss birth. After studying at the University at Lausanne
and working as an apprentice designer in a textile factory
in Mulhouse, Steinlen arrived in Paris in 1881 and quickly
established himself in Montmartre, where he lived and worked
for the rest of his life. In 1883 the illustrator Adolphe
Willette introduced him to the avant-garde literary and
artistic environment of the Chat Noir cabaret which had
been founded in 1881 by another Swiss expatriot, Rodolphe
Salis. Steinlen soon became an illustrator of its satirical
and humorous journal, Chat noir, and an artistic collaborator
with writers such as Emile Zola, poets such as Jean Richepin,
composers such as Paul Delmet, artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec
and, most important, the singer and songwriter Aristide
Bruant, all of whom he encountered at the Chat Noir. Bruant’s
lyrics incorporate the argot of the poor, the worker, the
rogue, the pimp and the prostitute, for whom Steinlen’s
empathy had been awakened on reading Zola’s novel L’Assommoir
(1877). Steinlen became the principal illustrator for Bruant’s
journal Le Mirliton (188596) and for the various books
containing his songs and monologues, including the two volumes
of Dans la rue (188895).
-From The Grove Dictionary of
Art
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