ODILON REDON (1840-1916)
ODILON REDON (1840-1916)
ODILON REDON (1840-1916)
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ODILON REDON (1840-1916)
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PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALAN AND MARION OLINER
ODILON REDON (1840-1916)

Fleurs dans un vase vert

Details
ODILON REDON (1840-1916)
Fleurs dans un vase vert
signed 'ODILON REDON' (lower right)
oil on panel
24 ¾ x 14 7⁄8 in. (62.9 x 37.9 cm.)
Painted circa 1910
Provenance
Arï Redon, Paris (son of the artist).
Private collection, France; sale, Sotheby's, London, 5 February 2001, lot 6.
Neffe-Degandt, London.
Acquired from the above by the present owners, March 2002.
Literature
R. Bacou, Odilon Redon, Geneva, 1956, vol. II, p. 54, no. 75 (illustrated).
K. Berger, Odilon Redon: Phantasie und Farbe, Cologne, 1964, p. 201, no. 277 (dated circa 1907).
Odilon Redon, ex. cat., Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 1973, p. 8 (illustrated in situ in the artist’s home).
A. Wildenstein, Odilon Redon: Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint et dessiné, Paris, 1996, vol. III, p. 119, no. 1533 (illustrated).
Exhibited
Paris, Galerie Druet, Exposition d’oeuvres de Odilon Redon: Peintures, pastels, aquarelles, dessins, lithographies, eaux-fortes, art décoratif, June 1923, p. 2, no. 14 (dated 1912).
Paris, Orangerie des Tuileries, Odilon Redon, October 1956-January 1957, p. 83, no. 167 (illustrated, pl. XLV; titled Le vase vert).
Le Poët Laval, Centre international d'art et d'animation, Exposition Odilon Redon, July-September 1998, p. 20, no. 45 (illustrated in color, p. 34).

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Lot Essay

In Fleurs dans un vase vert, sunflowers, daisies and marigolds blossom alongside green and ochre foliage, a lush bouquet casually arranged in bright multicolored vase where blues, purples, reds and greens intertwine. Such floral arrangements became Redon’s primary focus during the last two decades of his life, shifting away from the monsters and demons of his noir period, and expending the exploration of colors so present in his mythical scenes. The artist’s flower paintings were so influential because he treated color as independent from subject, anticipating later developments in modern art. “Redon’s work heralds the growing autonomy of [color and space], using them no longer to describe the object, but as an independent attribute of the image” (M. Hollein, As In a Dream: Odilon Redon, Frankfurt, 2007, p. 8).
In 1910, around the year that the present work was painted, Redon and his wife Camille began spending summers in Bièvres, a small commune south-west of Paris, after inheriting the home of Camille’s half-sister. “It is there, without a doubt, in an atelier, ‘a little refuge’ that he extends in the back of the garden where decides to sow flowers in disorder and fantasy […], that Redon executed many of his bouquets of flowers” (A. Wildenstein, op. cit., 1996, p. 6).
Fleurs dans un vase vert hung in the artist’s apartment, and remained in his collection until his passing; it then belonged to his son Arï.

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