Théophile Steinlen - Lover of Cats

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen,

 frequently referred to as just Steinlen 

(November 10, 1859 – December 13, 1923),

*Scorpio Sag Taurus Leo Libra*

 

Steinlen was born in Lausanne, Switzerland 

 and was a Swiss-born French Art Nouveau painter and printmaker.

 He went to Paris at the age of 19 to live 

and devote himself to drawing professionally. 

Around 1880, he settled in the risqué arrondissement of Montmartre, the centre of the Parisian art community. 

 

  

In the late nineteenth century,

 'Le Chat Noir' 

was a Parisian cabaret located 

in Montmartre.

 'The Black Cat' was a fitting name for such a locale, 

conjuring up as it does images of black magic and witches, 

and was probably influenced by Edgar Allan Poe's short story of the same name, published in 1847.  

Steinlen's illustrations in the associated journal

 Le Chat Noir, set him on the road 

to becoming 

one of the foremost 

illustrators in Paris at the turn of the century. 

His contemporaries 

were Toulouse-Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha.

Steinlen loved cats. 

He drew them, painted them, and sculpted them. 

He tried to translate every imaginable subtlety of their 

poses and movements. 

 

 His house on the rue Caulaincourt in Paris was, according to accounts, a meeting place for all the cats of the quartier. 

 In his early, years as an artist, 

he would sell drawings of cats in exchange for food, and in later years a cat would usually appear in most of his drawings, magazine illustrations, lithographs or posters, almost to the point of being a sort of signature.

Theophile Steinlen died in 1923 in Paris and was laid to rest in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre.