Artist, born in Bordeaux, SW France. He is usually regarded as a pioneer Surrealist, because of his use of dream images in his work. He made many charcoal drawings and lithographs, but after 1900 painted, especially in pastel, pictures of flowers and portraits in intense colour.
Analysis of his work
The mystery and the evocation of the drawings are best described by Huysmans in the following passage:
Those were the pictures bearing the signature: Odilon Redon. They held, between their gold-edged frames of unpolished pearwood, undreamed-of images: a Merovingian-type head, resting upon a cup;
Redon also describes his work as ambiguous and undefinable:
My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined.
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Cactus Man, 1881. |
Deux jeunes filles en fleurs (Two Young Girls Among Flowers), circa 1905 - 1912, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. |
Eye-Balloon, 1876, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. |
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Flower Clouds, 1903, The Art Institute of Chicago. |
Flowers, 1903, Kunstmuseum, St Gallen, Switzerland. |
Flowers in a Turquoise Vase, circa 1911. |
Homage to Leonardo da Vinci, 1908, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. |
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La Barque Mystique (The Mysterious Boat), circa 1890 - 1895. |
La coquille (The Seashell), 1912, Musee d'Orsay, Paris. |
Le Bouddha (The Buddha), 1904. |
Les yeux clos (Closed Eyes), 1890, Musee d'Orsay, Paris. |
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Mystery, date unknown, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. |
Mystical Knight (Oedipus and the Sphinx), 1894, Musee des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux. |
Ophelia, circa 1900 - 1905. |
Panel, circa 1902, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede, The Netherlands. |
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Parsifal, 1912, Musee d'Orsay, Paris. |
Pegasus, 1900, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. |
Profile and Flowers, 1912, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas. |
Red Boat with Blue Sails, 1907. |
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Saint John, 1892. |
Spirit of the Forest, 1880. |
The Crying Spider, 1881. |
The Cyclops, 1914, Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands. |
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The Druidess, 1893 |
The Golden Cell, 1892, The British Museum, London. |
The Raven, 1882, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. |
The Red Sphinx 1912. |
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The Smiling Spider, 1881, Musee du Louvre, Paris. |
The Winged Man (The Fallen Angel), circa 1880, Musee des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux. |
Woman with a Yellow Bodice, 1899, Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands. |
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