Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's brief career coincided with one of the most exciting periods in the history of western printmaking.

In Paris at the end of the nineteenth century, a new generation of avant-garde artists made techniques such as lithography, etching and woodcut central to their creative process, sparking a printmaking and collecting boom.

Vibrant images of the celebrities of the day - performers, singers and dancers from Paris's most famous nightclubs such as the Moulin Rouge and the Chat Noir - Lautrec's work was a huge commercial success and is still widely admired to this day, with reproductions popular the world over.

The prints and posters of this time are colourful, evocative and iconic. Toulouse-Lautrec's ground-breaking achievements in lithography, his technical and artistic virtuosity and modern outlook and approach, transgressed traditional boundaries by mixing popular culture, commerce and art and led the way to modern visual culture.