Odilon Redon

Odilon Redon was born in Bordeaux, France on April 20, 1840. He was the son of a French emigre who had struck it rich in New Orleans. Young Odilon was named for his Creole mother, Odile. He spent a sickly childhood at Peyrelebade, his father's estate in the Medoc.

As an escape from loneliness, he turned to music, drawing and daydreams. Peyrelebade became a basic source of inspiration for all his art, providing him with both subjects from nature and a stimulus for his fantasies, and Redon returned there constantly until its enforced sale in 1897.

Redon received his education in Bordeaux from 1851, rapidly showing talent in many art forms; he studied drawing with Stanislas Gorin from 1855. He also became an accomplished violinist. An indifferent scholar, he later tried and failed at architecture and sculpture, and lasted only briefly in academic painting classes. Not until he was thirty-five did he find his medium -- charcoal -- and then the lithographer's stone. He portrayed the strange creatures of his imagination; unfortunately he found a meager market for his work.

Redon was a strange self-effacing painter of dreams and visions who perplexed his

impressionist colleagues. Although he was a contemporary of such greats as Manet, Monet, Renoir, and Cezanne, he was out of step with his generation. By the turn of the century his dreams of terror gave way to a glowing world of pastels and oils. His favorite subjects were flowers and their fragile beauty. He died on July 6, 1916.