Individual artist
From 1890 onwards, Guilbert focused on interpreting the chansons of contemporary songwriters like Aristide Bruant, and also wrote the occasional song herself.
She deliberately used her appearance and voice to develop her own stage presence. This set her apart from other artistes. Contemporaries called her a diseuse, because of the strongly articulated way she spoke rather than sang her songs.
Trademark Caricature
Her unique voice ‘pierced the fog of smoke, alcohol fumes, and breath,’ the critic Gustave Geffroy wrote in Yvette Guilbert, an artist’s book by Toulouse-Lautrec. The caricatural prints show the singer draped in her trademark long dress and gloves.
Rather than downplaying Guilbert’s flaws, Lautrec exaggerated her tall, slender figure and upturned nose to emphasise her individuality.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Artists' book Yvette Guilbert by Gustave Geffroy, 1894
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Yvette Guilbert, 1893
Further reading
- Yvette Guilbert, La chanson de ma vie (mes mémoires), Paris 1927
- Jacques Paul Dauriac et al., Yvette Guilbert, diseuse fin de siècle, tent.cat., Albi (Musée Toulouse-Lautrec) 1994
- Richard Thomson et al., Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, Washington
2005