1895

May Milton

French, 1864 - 1901

Toulouse-Lautrec's bold poster designs secured lasting fame for an assortment of raffish café-concert performers in the Montmartre area of Paris, including May Milton, an English music hall refugee who was engaged by the Moulin Rouge for a single season. The poster captures her off-kilter attractions: pale skin, red hair, a double-jointed leg wrenched out from under the skirt of a little girl's white dress, revealing a glimpse of a red-patterned lining. Unlike the artist's posters for other performers, which were advertisements for Parisian nightspots, May Milton's was created to promote an upcoming tour of the United States that may have never taken place.