Odilon Redon was born on April 22, 1840 in Bordeaux, France. He was a Symbolist painter and printmaker.

Biography and Career:

Odilon Redon spent his youth in Bordeaux. From the age of fifteen he began to take lessons from S. Gorin who taught him to copy English engravings and water-colours. His success in drawing strengthened Redon's desire to make a career in art.

In 1863 he struck up a friendship with Rodolphe Bresdin, who helped him to master the technique of etching and whose bizarre compositions developed Redon's taste for fantastic subjects. In subsequent years he studied the technique of lithography under FantinLatour. In addition to graphics the young artist showed an interest in painting, and in 1864 he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he attend ed the class of Professor Gerome. He greatly admired Delacroix and even copied some of his paintings.

Until the mid-1880s Redon's work had been known only to a narrow circle of artists. His first album of lithographs, In a Dream World (1879), passed almost unnoticed; his first exhibitions (at the Salon of the review La Vie Moderne in 1881 and at the Exhibition Hall of the newspaper La Gauloise in 1882) evoked hardly any response. On the other hand, his weird, highly imaginative paintings and exquisite drawings stamped by the influence of Japanese prints were hailed by the Symbolist writers, notably Mallarme and Huysmans, by the artists of the Pont Aven school, including Gauguin and Bernard, and by the Nabis: Bonnard, Vuillard, Serusier and Denis. Odilon Redon was elected President of the Societe des Artistes Independants which was founded in 1884, and exhibited at its Salon together with Seurat and Signac.

Apart from lithographs Redon produced a large number of pastels and portraits, especially in his later period.

Quotes :

- "I have often, as an exercise and as a sustenance, painted before an object down to the smallest accidents of its visual appearance; but the day left me sad and with an unsatiated thirst. The next day I let the other source run, that of imagination, through the recollection of the forms and I was then reassured and appeased."

- "My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined."

Trivia :

- He first exhibited at the 1864 Salon (Department of Prints).
_{Odilon Redon Image Source : eb.com}

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Tags: 1840, bordeaux, france, symbolist, printmaker	[edit tags]

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Category: Artists  - ( Artists Archive)

Date Added: 22 August '07

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