He was barely five feet tall, but Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec became a giant of Western art, transforming the medium of the poster almost single-handedly into an art form by blending the world of the Japanese wood block with the Western approach to ma ss media. A post-impressionist, he worked in several visual idioms, including painting, print-making, and lithography. At one point he even worked on set designs for the stage. In fact, the only area of art he did not attempt was sculpture. Despite--or pe rhaps because of--a disabling hereditary bone disease, Toulouse-Lautrec lived a frenetic, creative life in late nineteenth-century Paris, the epitome of the bohemian but for his stature. He took his subjects from this bohemian milieu, creating a new and v ibrant iconography of the working class with scenes from the cabaret, circus, nightclubs, and even brothels. At his death in 1901 he left behind an...