When questioned by a critic about which art movement he belonged to, a youthful and forever restless Theophile-Alexander Steinlen answered: “I have always belonged to and will forever remain faithful to only one movement — freedom!”

This year, officials at the Montmartre Museum in Paris have decided to devote an entire exhibition to the works of Steinlen, an emblematic figure who was born in Switzerland in 1859 and travelled to Paris in order to fulfil his dream of living and working at the legendary Montmartre hill, until the end of his life in 1923.

In the words of one of the organisers, the event is devoted to marking the centenary of Steinlen’s career because, “For a long time, we had been looking for an opportunity to introduce him to younger generations, as well as pay homage to this totally forgotten and unclassifiable genius, who worked all his life as an engraver, painter and sculptor at Montmartre, not just to please art critics or buyers, but initially for the satisfaction of the working class people.”

A defender of social egalitarianism and an eloquent speaker, Steinlen frequently talked in front of vast audiences in favour of people’s rights and democracy but, strangely enough, loved to live in the company of animals — sketching and painting them as his principal models.

The Montmartre Museum in Paris has devoted an entire exhibition to celebrate the centenary of a French art icon — Theophile-Alexander Steinlen

Furthermore, he used his talents not just to create oil paintings, but also utilised a variety of other techniques, such as pen-and-ink drawings and wall posters, with the aim of communicating his ideas to the ordinary people passing by. In other words, he insisted that nobody had an absolute obligation to visit a museum in order to see his creations, and everyone was invited to watch them on the sidewalls of Montmartre streets.

The son of a rich Swiss businessman, Steinlen acquired a comfortable house with a garden on the top of the hill, where he lived with a crowd of pigeons, peacocks and even a crocodile named Gustave — not to forget some 15 cats that endlessly reappear in his paintings and sculptures.

Nevertheless, his portrait of a young woman with a determined expression on her face, returning home in the evening after work in the Montmartre neighbourhood, remains one of his most famous paintings, and is being used currently as the icon for the exhibition on most of the posters and magazine covers.

Steinlen quickly became acquainted with the artistic personalities of the time who lived and worked in Montmartre, one of them being none other than the legendary painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who remained one of Steinlen’s closest friends.

Though mainly famous during his own lifetime because of his drawings, paintings and posters showing cats in their playful, sleepy or violent states, his emotional attachment with the underprivileged working class people, who were numerous at that time, quickly led him to depict scenes in his paintings from the streets, factories and mines, featuring workers and poor street kids in ragged clothes.

Growing age, fame and success never hindered Steinlen’s passion for defending everyone’s rights. In 1902, he campaigned for the creation of a union of painters, cartoonists and draftsmen and, two years later, was elected as its president.

Another example of his idealism was that, after keenly observing the democratic surge in Moscow and St Petersburg during the era, he struggled to form the Society for the Friends of Russian People in France in 1907, of which he was immediately elected president.

Steinlen was not forgotten by France following his death in Montmartre in 1923. His stone statue stands on a square not far from his residence, and a street is named after him in the same neighbourhood.

‘Theophile-Alexander Steinlen (1859-1923): The Centenary Exhibition’ is on display at the Musée Montmartre in Paris from October 13, 2023-February 11, 2024

The writer is an art critic based in Paris. He can be reached at ZafMasud@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 17th, 2023