French Symbolist Painter, 1840-1916 Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon (April 20, 1840 ?C July 6, 1916) was a Symbolist painter and printmaker, born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France. Odilon was a nickname derived from his mother, Odile. Redon started drawing as a young child, and at the age of 10 he was awarded a drawing prize at school. At age 15, he began formal study in drawing but on the insistence of his father he switched to architecture. His failure to pass the entrance exams at Paris?? Ecole des Beaux-Arts ended any plans for a career as an architect, although he would later study there under Jean-L??on Gerôme. Back home in his native Bordeaux, he took up sculpture, and Rodolphe Bresdin instructed him in etching and lithography. However, his artistic career was interrupted in 1870 when he joined the army to serve in the Franco-Prussian War. At the end of the war, he moved to Paris, working almost exclusively in charcoal and lithography. It would not be until 1878 that his work gained any recognition with Guardian Spirit of the Waters, and he published his first album of lithographs, titled Dans le R??ve, in 1879. Still, Redon remained relatively unknown until the appearance in 1884 of a cult novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans titled, À rebours (Against Nature). The story featured a decadent aristocrat who collected Redon's drawings. In the 1890s, he began to use pastel and oils, which dominated his works for the rest of his life. In 1899, he exhibited with the Nabis at Durand-Ruel's. In 1903 he was awarded the Legion of Honor. His popularity increased when a catalogue of etchings and lithographs was published by Andr?? Mellerio in 1913 and that same year, he was given the largest single representation at the New York Armory Show. In 1923 Mellerio published: Odilon Redon: Peintre Dessinateur et Graveur. An archive of Mellerio's papers is held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2005 the Museum of Modern Art launched an exhibition entitled "Beyond The Visible", a comprehensive overview of Redon's work showcasing more than 100 paintings, drawings, prints and books from The Ian Woodner Family Collection. The exhibition ran from October 30, 2005 to January 23, 2006.   Related Paintings of Odilon Redon :. | The Winged Man or the Fallen Angel | Eve | les yeux clos | Vase with Flowers | Paul Gauguin |
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Klimt, Gustav
Austrian Art Nouveau Painter, 1862-1918 Artist Gustav Klimt, like composer Gustav Mahler, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and big-time thinker Sigmund Freud, was a hotshot of Vienna's glory days as it ushered in the 20th century. Influenced by Impressionism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau, Klimt founded the Vienna Secession (1898), an avant-garde art movement that included a broad base of artisans and craftsmen as well as painters. Klimt himself was known more for elaborate graphic schemes than "painterly" work -- his most famous piece, The Kiss (1908), shows his distinctive gold-encrusted decorations over a semi-realistic portrait of an embracing couple. He used the framework of myth and allegory and he painted women, in ornate portraits and erotic exposures that were scandalous by Victorian-era standards. He also had time for more than painting -- after his death he was credited with as many as 14 illegitimate children. A big influence on the decorative arts in Austria, his most famous paintings include Salome