Odilon Redon

Ambroise Vollard, Paris
Private Collection (by 1978 and until 2006)
Acquired by the present owner in 2006

Alex Wildenstein, Odilon Redon, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint et dessiné, vol. I, Paris, 1992, no.159, illustrated p. 74

This work is in very good condition. The medium is rich and has retained its lustre. Executed on beige wove paper, not laid down. The sheet is fixed to the mount at the four corners and the center of the left and right edges. The edges are very slightly irregular. There is an artist's pinhole in each corner. A close inspection reveals some faint flattened creases in the upper left, upper right and lower right corners and two minor restored tears: one running horizontally from the upper left edge, towards the corner, and one running diagonally across the lower right corner.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Redon proved to be an inspiration for many younger artists including the Nabis, Matisse and Marcel Duchamp. Richard Hobbs discusses the interest in Redon shown by the Nabis: “What the Nabis actually so admired in Redon was not only the technical quality of his works but also his ability to suggest the mysterious and the spiritual. Bonnard later summed this up succinctly: ‘What strikes me most in his work is the coming together of two almost opposite qualities: very pure plastic substance and very mysterious expression. Our whole generation is under his charm and benefits from his advice’” (Richard Hobbs, Odilon Redon, London, 1977, p. 84). After his revolutionary showing of Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2at the 1913 Armory Show (where 38 of Redon’s works were also exhibited), Marcel Duchamp was asked whether his art or that of his contemporaries was derived from the legacy of Cézanne. He replied, "I am sure that most of my friends would say so and I know that he [Cézanne] is a great man. Nevertheless, if I am to tell what my own point of departure has been, I should say that it was the art of Odilon Redon” (quoted by John Rewald in Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau, Rodolphe Bresdin (exhibition catalogue), Museum of Modern Art, New York & The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1961-62, p. 44).

The figure in the offered work shares many features with other Yeux Clos images from Redon’s oeuvre. “The head can also be assigned its place within an entire series of Redon’s figures. Without clearly determinable gender, yet tending toward the female, with regular but hard features, framed by a veil or hair and a collar, slightly inclined and with eyes either closed or gazing downward, it resists identification but conveys at the same time the impression of a superior spiritual being that is sufficient unto itself and may even feel sympathy for normal humanity. Since the appearance in 1886 of Light Profile, a lithograph based on a charcoal drawing entitled The Fairy and executed four years earlier, Redon’s fame was based in part on precisely such figures” (Dario Gamboni in As in a Dream, Odilon Redon (exhibition catalogue), Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 2007, pp. 126-27).