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 :. | Reflexion | anemoner | Winged Old Man with a Long White Beard | The red poppy | The Chariot of Apollo |
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Ivan Nikitin
Russian Painter, ca.1680-1742,Russian painter. The son of a Moscow priest who was close to the imperial court, Nikitin probably studied at the workshop of the Armoury Palace in Moscow and subsequently worked chiefly in St Petersburg. His early portraits were of Peter the Great and members of Peter family, for example the portraits of Peter daughters Elizabeth (St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.) and Anne (Moscow, Tret yakov Gal.) and of his sister Natal ya Alekseyevna (St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). One of the few signed and dated works is a portrait of Praskov ya Ioannovna, Daughter of Tsar Ivan V (1714; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). Nikitin style was formed at the time of Peter the Great reforms of the administrative and education system in Russia, and he ranks as a pioneer of a new style in Russian painting. In his early works, up to 1716, he adapted the medieval Russian style of portraiture to the forms of contemporary European examples.
William Andrews Nesfield
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Fernand Khnopff
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