French painter, draughtsman, pastellist, lithographer, illustrator, ‘metteur en scene’ and theatre decorator.
As an artist, Dethomas was highly regarded by his contemporaries and exhibited widely, both within France and abroad. During the later part of his career, he is best remembered for his work overseeing set and costume design for the Théâtre National de l’Opéra and the Théâtre des Arts, Comédie-Française. The Musée d’Orsay (Paris), the Pushkin Museum (Moscow) and the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg) hold works by Dethomas, but the majority of his best work remain in the private collections of his descendants. A large collection of Dethomas’s theatrically related work is held at the Bibliothèque-Musée de l’Opéra National de Paris.
Dethomas is also remembered for his close friendship with the artists Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, his brother in-law Ignacio Zuloaga and his association with Les Nabis and other important Symbolist and Post Impressionist artists and writers. Lautrec nicknamed him “Grosnabre” for his dead-pan face; Thadee Natanson described him as a gentle giant (he was two metres tall and chubby). The author Pierre Louys was also a close companion of Dethomas and had collaborated with him on the first edition of Le Centaure in 1896.
Dethomas died in Paris at 6 p.m. on 21 January 1929.
Link to Wikipedia biography