id: 376229 accession number: 2020.63 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2020.63 updated: 2024-03-26 02:02:10.401000 Quasimodo, c. 1875–80. Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916). Charcoal with fabricated black chalk and touches of white and gray gouache on gray wove paper; sheet: 36.8 x 32.9 cm (14 1/2 x 12 15/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 2020.63 title: Quasimodo title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1875–80 creation date earliest: 1870 creation date latest: 1885 current location: creditline: Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: charcoal with fabricated black chalk and touches of white and gray gouache on gray wove paper department: Drawings collection: DR - French type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: Wildenstein 2639 --- CREATORS * Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916) - artist A leader of the symbolist movement in France, Odilon Redon was born in Bordeaux in 1840 and grew up in the surrounding region. During his early years he studied drawing, architecture, and the violin. A friendship with Armand Clavaud, a local botanist and philosopher, stimulated Redon's passion for romantic art and literature. In 1864, after a brief and discouraging period of instruction with Gérôme in Paris, Redon returned to Bordeaux, where he studied printmaking with Rodolphe Bresdin (1825-1885). Deploring the emphasis on rational, phenomenal experience in academic and naturalist art, Redon turned for inspiration to the imaginative paintings of Delacroix, the prints of Francisco José de Goya (1746-1828), and the poetry of Charles Baudelaire. In 1870, after military service in the Franco-Prussian War, Redon settled in Paris and produced his first Noirs. These visionary images, featuring floating eyes and severed heads born aloft on wings, reflect Redon's belief in the superiority of the imagination and fantasy, which he considered "the messenger of the unconscious." After producing his initial Noirs in charcoal, Redon discovered a method of transferring his drawings to lithography in 1876. Throughout the 1880s he continued to use charcoal, etching, and lithography as his primary media, and he produced twelve lithography albums before abandoning the genre in the late 1890s. During the 1880s Redon emerged as a leader of the symbolist reaction against impressionism. The publication in 1879 of his first lithographic album, Dans le rêve, followed by his first solo exhibition in 1881, attracted the admiration of J. K. Huysmans, who included illustrations by Redon in his novel À rebours (1884). Around the same time, Redon developed a personal and artistic relationship with poet Stéphane Mallarmé. Increasingly drawn into the public arena, Redon helped organize the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1884. In 1886 he participated in the last impressionist exhibition and began showing with Les XX in Brussels. Redon's antinaturalist, visionary, art inspired many symbolist and Nabi artists, including Gauguin and Vuillard. Maurice Denis praised Redon as "our Mallarmé," and in 1892 critic Albert Aurier described Redon as a leader of the new "idealistic" tendency in art. After 1890 the focus of Redon's activity shifted from monochromatic drawings and prints toward exploring color in richly worked pastels. His innovations in luminous color, as seen in the pastel and oil paintings he exhibited at the Galeries Durand-Ruel in 1900 were greatly admired by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and the Fauves. Awarded the Legion of Honor in 1903, Redon continued his leadership role in the avant-garde and in 1904 became a founding member of the Salon d'Automne. In 1913 forty of his works were selected for exhibition in the Armory Show, the most by any artist. Redon died at his home in Paris in the summer of 1916. --- measurements: Sheet: 36.8 x 32.9 cm (14 1/2 x 12 15/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: signed, lower left, in black ink: ODILON REDON translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Collecting Dreams: Odilon Redon opening date: 2021-09-19T04:00:00 Collecting Dreams: Odilon Redon. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 19, 2021-January 23, 2022). title: Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2023-01-20T05:00:00 Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-April 30, 2023). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * {'description': 'Les Peintres de l’âme: Le Symbolisme idéaliste en France. Musée d’Ixelles, Brussels (October 15–December 31, 1999).', 'opening_date': '1999-12-31T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Œuvres sur papier. Galerie Eric Coatalem, Paris (2002).', 'opening_date': '2002-01-01T00:00:00'} --- PROVENANCE Marcel Lecomte [1900-1966], Paris date: ?-? footnotes: citations: (sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 11, 1997, no. 74) date: 1997 footnotes: citations: (Galerie Ronny van de Velde, Antwerp) date: by 1999 footnotes: citations: Private Collection, Paris, France date: after 1999-before 2002 footnotes: citations: (Galerie Eric Coatalem, Paris, sold to Eugene Thaw, New York) date: 2002 footnotes: citations: Eugene Thaw [1927–2018], New York date: 2002-2018 footnotes: citations: (sale, Christie’s, New York, November 12, 2018, no. 160) date: 2018 footnotes: citations: (sale, Christie’s, New York, May 14, 2019, no. 116, sold to a private collector) date: 2019 footnotes: citations: private collection date: 2019 footnotes: citations: (Jill Newhouse, New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH) date: 2019-2020 footnotes: citations: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 2020- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Wildenstein, Alec. Odilon Redon, catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint et dessiné. Paris: Wildenstein Institute, 1992. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: vol. 4, p. 276, no. 2639 url: Peintures et dessins des XIXe et XXe siècles. Paris: Drouot, 1997. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 24, no. 74 url: Jumeau-Lafond, Jean-David. Les Peintres de l’âme: Le Symbolisme idéaliste en France. Exh. cat. Brussels: Musée d’Ixelles, 1999. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 143, no. 109 url: Œuvres sur papier. Exh. cat. Paris: Galerie Eric Coatalem, 2002. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 50-51 url: Impressionist and Modern Art Works on Paper and Day Sales. New York: Christie’s, 2018. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: no. 160 url: Impressionist and Modern Art Works on Paper and Day Sales. New York: Christie’s, 2019. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: no. 116 url: Salsbury, Britany. “Collecting Dreams: An exhibition of the museum's outstanding collection of works by Odilon Redon.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 61, no. 3 (Summer 2021): 12-15. page number: Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 13-14 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2020.63/2020.63_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2020.63/2020.63_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2020.63/2020.63_full.tif