Exhibition catalogue The Chat Noir in Montmartre

The Chat Noir, founded in 1881 by Rodolphe Salis in Montmartre, is the first avant-garde literary, artistic and musical cabaret in Paris.

The Chat Noir was a place of innovation and improvisation where every night was different from the previous one. The evenings were filled with songs and stories, and after 1886 the shadow theater became the principal attraction. Pianists and composers such as Paul Delmet, Albert Trinchant, Erik Satie, Claude Debussy and Gustave Charpentier played and or composed their music at the Chat Noir.

The exhibition recreates the literary, artistic and musical atmosphere of the Chat Noir and of fin-de-siècle Montmartre with more than 200 works by numerous artists, known and little-known, such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edouard Vuillard, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, Adolphe Willette, Henri Rivière, the Incoherents, the Nabis, Symbolists and humorists.