The oeuvre of Odilon Redon (1840–1916) marks the threshold between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and thus represents the interplay between tradition and innovation. Fractures and contrasts characterize his artistic development—from the black and white of his early, dark lithographs and works in charcoal to the downright explosions of color in his bright pastels and oils. Bizarre monsters appear alongside heavenly creatures in a blend of dream and nightmare, nature and vision. Inclined to internalization, the mythic, sacred, and biological motifs in Redon’s works take on a sense of the mystical, owing to both the subject and the aesthetic aspects of color and form. Greatly admired by contemporaries such as Paul Cézanne and Paul gauguin, Redon influenced artists such as Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, and Marcel Duchamp as well as the Surrealists. The catalogue presents the artist’s brilliant ideas and his body of work in all of its artistic heterogeneity.

Exhibition schedule: Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, February 2–May 18, 2014