Internationally acclaimed author, curator, and lecturer Dr. Gloria Groom will deliver tomorrow?s PartnerRe Art Lecture at the Bermuda National Gallery (BNG) at 6 p.m. A reception will precede the lecture at 5.30 p.m.

Dr. Groom is one of the world?s leading experts on 19th century French art and is currently the David and Mary Winton Green curator of 19th century European painting at The Art Institute of Chicago, one of America?s leading art museums.

Recently she was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by the French government.

Her lecture, entitled ?Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre?, will explore the relationship between this Post-Impressionist artist, his environment and his contemporaries. Dr. Groom was co-curator of the successful exhibition, ?Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre?, organised by the Art Institute of Chicago in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art.

The exhibition was one of the ?must-see? art events of 2005, attracting more 700,000 visitors in its six-month run.

?We are very privileged, thanks to the generous support of PartnerRe, to be able to bring someone of Dr. Groom?s calibre from such a prestigious institution to Bermuda,? BNG director Laura Gorham said.

?This is a rare opportunity for art lovers, students and collectors to meet and hear one of the world?s leading authorities on French art. It is simply an opportunity not to be missed.?

French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec?s representations of the dance halls of the Moulin Rouge have immortalised Paris? Montmartre region forever. Lautrec, however, was not the only artist exploring the neighbourhood on the hill north of the French capital known as the ?Butte?, and visitors to the exhibition were introduced to a variety of artists ? some famous, like Van Gogh and Picasso, but others ? like Anquetin, Steinlen and the Catalan Casas ? are much less known today. As the exhibition made clear, the contribution of these artists would not have been possible without the raucous entertainments, cheap alcohol, clandestine prostitution and anti-establishment society that the Montmartrois culture provided. Dr. Groom?s lecture will discuss the achievement of Lautrec and his contemporaries as well as the social context that makes it impossible to separate their art from a specific place.

Montmartre was both a unique place, geographically as well as a state of mind, and its ?stars? ? Aristide Bruant, Yvette Guilbert, Jane Avril and Loie F?ller, among others ? not only inspired paintings, posters, and other art forms, but also launched the notion of ?celebrity culture? that is still very much with us today.

Her book, ?Edouard Vuillard: Painter-Decorator?,a study of Vuillard?s mural-like paintings commissioned for private Parisian residences, was published by Yale University Press.