Odilon Redon (April 22, 1840 - July 6, 1916) was a symbolist painter.
Odilon Redon was born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France.
The image shown here is a photo of Redon’s self portrait painted in 1880 that now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France.
Odilon Redon started drawing as a very young child and at the age of ten, was awarded a drawing prize at school. At age 15, he began to study drawing but on the insistence of his father switched to architecture. Any career in architecture ended when he failed to pass the entrance exams at Paris’ École des Beaux-Arts but eventually he would study there under Jean-Léon Gerôme (1824-1904).
Back home in his native Bordeaux, he took up sculpture and was instructed in etching and lithography by Rodolphe Bresdin (1822-1885).
However, his artistic career was interrupted when he joined the army in 1870 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 before his work gained any recognition with "Guardian Spirit of the Waters" and he published his first album of lithographs titled: "Dans le Rêve" in 1879. Still, Redon remained relatively unknown until the appearance in 1884 of a cult novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans titled: "A rebours (Against Nature) ." The story featured a decadent aristocrat who collected Redon's drawings.
In the 1890s, he began to use pastel and oils. That dominated his works for the rest of his life. In 1899, he exhibited with the Les 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 André Mellerio in 1913 and that same year, he was given the largest single representation at the New York Armory Show.
Odilon Redon is considered by many as the greatest of the French Symbolist painters. His works can be found at some of the great museums in Europe and North America.
In 1923 Mellerio published: "Odilon Redon: Peintre Dessinateur et Graveur."