Odilon Redon's dreamlike paintings on view in Cleveland
From September 19, 2021 through January 23, 2022, the Cleveland Museum of Art presents "Collecting Dreams," an exhibition of works by symbolist painter Odilon Redon.
Odilon Redon - Violette Heymann - 1910Odilon Redon - Quasimodo - 1875
Source: Cleveland Museum of Art Images: Odilon Redon, "Violette Heymann," 1910. Pastel; 72 x 92 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art ·· Odilon Redon, "Quasimodo," c.1875. Charcoal with black chalk. The Cleveland Museum of Art
Of all the painters who formed the enigmatic Symbolist movement of the late 19th century, Odilon Redon (1840-1916) was noted for his use of vivid colors and dreamlike imagery and is often considered an influence on Fauvism and Surrealism.
Belonging to a wealthy family, Redon studied at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris under the famous historicist and orientalist painter Jean-Léon Gérôme. His admiration for the literary works of Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire, as well as his interest in science, led him away from Academicism, focusing his interest on the complexity and mystery of Symbolism.
The exhibition celebrates the recent acquisition of "Quasimodo" (1875), a drawing from the first phase of Redon's career, belonging to a group of works that the artist himself called "noirs" both for their subject matter and their dark colors. "Quasimodo" might be a good companion to a strange lithograph by Redon present in the exhibition, bearing the disturbing title "Then There Appears a Singular Being, Having the Head of a Man on the Body of a Fish" (1888). On a much less gloomy note, and making use of the bright colors so characteristic of Redon, the exhibition includes "Andromeda" (1912), on loan from the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, as well as "Violette Heymann" (1910), from the Cleveland Museum's own collection.
William M. Griswold, director of the CMA, explained how the Cleveland Museum of Art was one of the first American museums to collect the work of this innovative artist, eventually assembling the most important group of Redon's works outside of France. Thus, Griswold defines the exhibition as "a chronicle of nearly 100 years of collecting."

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