A NORTH-EAST museum has claimed a coup by securing an exhibition of art that has not been seen for more than 100 years.

The exhibition, at Bowes Museum, near Barnard Castle, County Durham, will recreate a show of Paris poster art first held in London in 1894.

Virtually all of the images are drawn from the London show in which the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and his contemporaries featured prominently.

The wife of one of the organisers of that exhibition gave many of the posters to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1921, where they have remained.

The exhibition will highlight how the poster came of age as an artform with the work of Jules Chret from the late 1880s.

It will stress the role of Toulouse-Lautrec by including a section devoted to his work as a general print-maker.

Howard Coutts, exhibition curator at The Bowes Museum, said: "This has been a thrilling exhibition to work on and to judge the English response to French art at the end of the 19th Century.

"It brings some of the finest and most memorable images of 19th Century French art to the North-East."

Museum director Adrian Jenkins said: "We are most grateful to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London for allowing us to create this show using objects from their collections.

"Once again it shows that The Bowes Museum can use its national and international links to create exhibitions of global stature."

The exhibition will open at the museum on September 11 and will run until January 9.

Published: 17/08/2004