Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams, 1840-1916 - Exhibition in Paris and Montpellier at the Grand Palais and Fabre Museum

Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams, 1840-1916 

Grand Palais - Galeries nationales, Paris 

23 March - 20 June 2011 

Musée Fabre, Montpellier 

7 July - 16 october 2011 

The exhibition ODILE REDON: PRINCE OF DREAMS, 1840-1916 is on view in France in Paris through June 2011 and will be on view in Montpellier (South of France) at Fabre museum from July to October 2011. An exhibition organised by the Rmn-Grand Palais, the Musée d’Orsay and the musée Fabre de Montpellier Agglomération. With special support from the Bibliothèque nationale de France.  

Although he was a contemporary of the Impressionists (he took part in the group’s last exhibition in 1886), ODILON REDON (Bordeaux 1840 - Paris 1916) remains the champion of mystery and the subconscious in a period which focused on reality and objectivity. One of the leaders in the art world at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, he was a key figure in early symbolism, with his charcoals and lithographs (the famous noirs -blacks) before being admired for his pastels and paintings by the young generation of artists in love with colour, the Nabis and the Fauves. He was then regarded as one of the precursors of surrealism. 

The exhibition in the Galeries nationales-Grand Palais is a real rediscovery of this artist. A number of major exhibitions have recently been devoted to him in other parts of the world -Chicago and London, 1994; Frankfurt, 2007-, but this retrospective is the first in Paris since the exhibition in the Orangerie in 1956. It is based on the study of many unpublished documents which shed new light on Redon’s work. In particular it makes systematic use of his “book of reason” (Paris, Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet), in which he jotted down the titles and dates of his works. The book is on display and was published in the appendix to the catalogue. 

Some hundred and eighty paintings, pastels, charcoals and drawings, many unpublished, and a major set of engravings and lithographs (about a hundred prints, courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France-French National Library, Paris) are arranged in chronological  order to emphasise the development in Redon’s style and themes, from the anguished period of the Noirs to the explosion of colour in his last works, in a gradual progression from shade to light. For the first time, the great mural that he painted for his patron Robert de Domecy will be displayed in its original size and layout. Redon’s work in the decorative arts will also be on show, thanks to major loans from the Mobilier national. 

ODILON REDON BIOGRAPHY

Despite the overall continuity of Odilon Redon' style throughout his career, three periods can be distinguished.  

Odilon Redon: Early years to 1890 

From Odilon Redon’ youth and his training in etching under the mysterious Rodolphe Bresdin (1822-1885) in Bordeaux, until the beginning of the Noirs [Blacks] (charcoal drawings, lithographs) which, from his first collection of lithographs (Dans le Reve [In the Dream], 1879), made his reputation in the budding symbolism movement, particularly in literary circles. Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) paid homage to him in his famous novel A rebours (Against the Grain, 1884), whose archetypal refined, decadent hero fervently collected Redon’s  work. His references are Darwin and the mysteries of the origins of the world but also the sumptuous macabre works of Edgar Allen Poe and Goya. The extraordinary beauty of his lithographs is due to an accomplished technique and velvety blacks, which were said to be inimitable. 

Odilon Redon: From 1892 the end of the century 

This is the period when the dreams of the Noirs were gradually transposed into colour. Yeux clos (Closed Eyes 1890, Paris, Musée d’Orsay), of which there is a painting and a lithograph, is a turning point after which Redon approached colour in a new spirit. He used pastel with startling originality and, alongside Degas, is still one of the great masters of this medium. He became a major figure in symbolism, and mixed with Mallarmé and Gauguin.  

Odilon Redon in the twentieth century 

After 1899, Redon gave up lithography and charcoal drawing. Black and white gave way to vivid colour in increasingly large formats. Collectors competed for his mythological themes and brightly coloured flower paintings, a sign of his new peace of mind. It was during this period that Redon produced some of the great decorations which number among the lesser known masterpieces of the twentieth century, including the one in the Fontfroide abbey, which will be open to the public while the exhibition is showing at the Musée Fabre (Fabre museum) in Montpellier, in summer 2010. He won the admiration of Bonnard, Vuillard, Matisse and the Fauves and in his last years he designed tapestry cartoons for the Manufacture des Gobelins. 

Head curator: Rodolphe Rapetti, general heritage curator, associate researcher at the Institut national d’histoire de l’art [National Institute of Art History, Paris]

Curators: 

Marie-Pierre Salé, chief curator at the Musée d’Orsay [Orsay Museum, Paris]

Valérie Sueur-Hermel, curator of the Print and Photography department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France [French National Library, Paris], head of the 19th century collections 

Exhibition design: Hubert Le Gall  

RMN - GRAND PALAIS, PARIS 

www.rmn.fr 

Information, tickets, download of audioguides on the website 

BnF à l’heure anglaise - Week-end Britannique

Ce week-end la BnF devient The French national Library…

Du vendredi 15 au dimanche 17 octobre 2010, au Petit auditorium, la BnF se met à l’heure de Londres avec un coup de projecteur sur divers aspects de la culture britannique contemporaine, de la littérature à la série télé, en passant par le foot, la musique chorale et le théâtre engagé : lectures, rencontres, tables rondes, projections…

Retrouvez, dans l’Abécédaire des collections (Espace Découverte, hall Est), une sélection de pièces patrimoniales autour des Beatles, notamment le manuscrit original de Yesterday, un prêt exceptionnel de la British Library !

vendredi 15 octobre, 14 h 30

► Lecture par Charlotte Rampling, comédienne
en anglais surtitrée en français

samedi 16 octobre

► 14 h 30 : « Va te faire foot » : l’Angleterre, royaume du ballon rond ?
dialogue entre Stephen Frears, cinéaste et Philippe Auclair, journaliste

► 15 h 30 : The english dream ? Quelle société les Anglais ont-ils choisie ?
dialogue entre Will Self, écrivain et Agnès Catherine Poirier, journaliste

► 16 h 15 : Le théâtre anglais est-il toujours un lieu de contestation ?
avec Chris Campbell, directeur artistique du Royal Court Theatre,
Moira Buffni, dramaturge britannique et 
Patrice Martinet, directeur de l’Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet
Rencontre animée par Agnès Catherine Poirier

► 17 h 30 : Concert « de Henri VIII aux Beatles »
par le Choeur 43 sous la direction de Myriam Niel

dimanche 17 octobre, 14 h

► Blackpool
série musicale (BBC, 2004), VO sous-titrée, durée 5h50 
Quand un doux rêveur de Blackpool désire transformer  sa ville en un nouveau Las Vegas...

En partenariat avec la librairie Shakespeare and Co et la maison de thé Le Thé des Ecrivains.

Entrée libre

BnF François Mitterrand
Petit auditorium - Hall Est
Quai François Mauriac
75013 Paris

www.bnf.fr

Exposition Monet-Rodin au Musée Rodin, Paris

Monet-Rodin. Rien que vous et moi
Musée Rodin, Paris
Commissariat général : Dominique Viéville
Commissaires de l’exposition : Nadine Lehni et Véronique Matiussi
1er octobre 2010 - 30 janvier 2011

En marge de la rétrospective qui sera consacrée à Monet à l’automne 2010 au Grand Palais, le musée Rodin propose une exposition-dossier à partir d’un des chefs-d’oeuvre de ses collections : la peinture représentant Belle-Île, par CLAUDE MONET.

 Photographie de Claude Monet par Adolphe Braun
Courtesy Musée Rodin, Paris

CLAUDE MONET, Belle-Ile-en-Mer
Courtesy Musée Rodin, Paris

Cette peinture fut probablement donnée vers 1888 par le peintre à AUGUSTE RODIN, en remerciement ou en échange de La Jeune Mère à la grotte que le sculpteur venait de lui offrir.

Deux ans auparavant, à l’automne 1886, CLAUDE MONET s’était isolé durant dix semaines pour peindre la côte rocheuse de Belle-Ile luttant alternativement contre le soleil, le vent, la pluie et les tempêtes pour réaliser en un travail déjà sériel et d’une grande virtuosité, trente-neuf toiles de cette falaise sauvage. Le plus grand des impressionnistes et le sculpteur le plus célèbre de son temps partagent un réel attachement à la nature qui les unit dans cette quête vers un même idéal artistique. Leurs rencontres lors des célébrations officielles et mondaines ou plus intimes, dans la campagne de Giverny sont régulières. Cette exposition-dossier évoque à travers quelques plâtres, manuscrits et autres documents la relation particulièrement riche et longue entre les deux hommes dont l’exposition commune en 1889, à la galerie Georges Petit constitue un événement marquant. Ensemble mais sur l’initiative de Monet, ils contribuèrent à l’organisation de cette exposition retentissante, qui allait célébrer, avant l’heure, ces deux précurseurs. Désormais en possession des clés pour établir leurs propres règles ils allaient explorer certaines des voies les plus fécondes, à l’origine de la modernité.

« Ils devaient se grouper. L’un semble compléter l’autre – écrivait-on dans la presse au lendemain du vernissage – Rodin ne pouvait trouver de meilleur cadre à sa sculpture que la peinture de Claude Monet… A première vue, on voit que les deux artistes ne relèvent que d’eux-mêmes. On est bien réellement chez eux, et la nature y est bien chez elle. C’est à elle seule qu’ils se sont adressés, bannissant impitoyablement toute réminiscence étrangère. Résultat : étonnement, nouveauté, originalité… Ce qu’ils ont trouvé, c’est la vie. »

Catalogue de l’exposition : Editions du musée Rodin / Flammarion

Commissariat général
Dominique Viéville, Conservateur général du patrimoine, Directeur du musée Rodin

Commissaires de l’exposition
Nadine Lehni, Conservateur en chef chargée des dessins et des peintures
Véronique Matiussi, Service de la recherche, de la documentation, de la bibliothèque et des archives, Adjointe au responsable de service

Musée Rodin, Paris
www.musee-rodin.fr

Art Collection of Max Palevsky Christie's Auctions

Highlights from The Collection of Max Palevsky tour started today at Christie's Paris where it is exhibited through September 21, followed by Christie’s Hong Kong from October 2-6, then to Christie’s London from October 9-14 and finally in Christie’s New York from October 21-27, 2010. 

The Collection of Max Palevsky is a superb group of over 250 works ranging  from Antiquities to those by the most significant artists from the Impressionist and Modern and Post-War and Contemporary periods.  The collection will be offered throughout multiple auctions starting in October 2010 at Christie’s New York and is expected to realize from $53 million to $78 million. 

Short biography of Max PALEVSKY (1924-2010) - Born in Chicago, he was an innovator and forerunner in computers and systems technology. His work continues to influence computing technology today. After serving in World War II, he traveled to New York and became fascinated with an exhibition on modern architecture at the Museum of Modern Art.  It was then that he began to envision what a modern utopia could be.  Palevsky was trained in mathematics and engineering and had a love for the literature of Balzac and Proust. In 1951 Palevsky leapt from a job as a philosophy professor at the University of California, Los Angeles to pursue computers technology, a fledgling field.

“We saw a class of problems that should be solved by computers, but for which no computers were being built.” — Max Palevsky, 1967

He worked early on at firms including Bendix Corporation and Packard Bell Computer Corporation.  In the early 1960s he  was a  proponent of small and medium-size business computers — a market he intuited was neglected by IBM and other leading firms at the time —  and co-founded Scientific Data Systems, which he eventually sold to Xerox in 1969 for close to $1 billion. He helped found Intel Corp. and then exited the corporate world for other endeavors such as film production, then politics supporting Democrats George McGovern, Robert F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Gray Davis. He also invested in a passion of his, Rolling Stone magazine. Palevsky began collecting art later in life, which enriched his homes in Beverly Hills, Malibu and Palm Springs, Calif.

“Max Palevsky’s keen intellect, passion for mathematics, computer systems and philosophy is acutely reflected in the works he collected,” said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s America.  “From Fernand Léger, whose obsession with the machine age echoed Palevsky’s own, to Richard Lindner’s robotic women and Alexander Calder’s riveted steel sculptures, there is a sense of order and symmetry to the collection.  Palevsky’s art collection offers insight to his genius.”

The Collection of Max Palevsky comprises Antiquities, Impressionist and Modern Art, Post-War and Contemporary Art, 20th Century Decorative Arts and Design, Prints and Multiples, Japanese Art, Latin American Art, American Sculpture and  Modern British Art.

Highlights from The Collection of Max Palevsky within Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale to be held on November 3, 2010 in New York, include five works by the French artist Fernand Léger (1881-1955). Most notable is Léger’s La Tasse de Thé 1921 (estimate: $8,000,000-12,000,000), a depiction of a voluptuous curvilinear woman against a geometric background of contrasting forms in primary colors. It belongs to Léger’s pivotal series of the early 1920s, which culminated in his seminal masterpiece Le Grand Déjeuner, on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It is the top lot in the Palevsky collection.  Femme sur fond rouge, femme assise, painted in the 1920s (estimate: $5,000,000-7,000,000) shows Léger in his most daring and reductive style, placing a woman in tones of steely gray and black against a flat crimson background. 

Max Palevsky’s love of Balzac inspired him to collect a series of Auguste Rodin bronzes related to the sculptor's commission for a monument to the author. Balzac étude finale (estimate: $500,000-700,000), depicting the imperious Balzac in costume, is the highlight of the group. Other exciting versions of the Balzac subject will be offered in the following Day Sale on November 4. 

Also a part of the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale is Giorgio Morandi’s poetic Natura Morta (estimate: $700,000-1,000,000), a still life of a carafe and two canisters in muted tones and an Egon Schiele work from 1911, named Liegender Akt mit schwarzen Strumpfen (estimate: $1,000,000- 1,500,000), depicting a nude woman lounging.

For the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening sale to be held on November 10, 2010, at Christie’s Rockefeller Center flagship, the highlights from The Collection of Max Palevsky include: Tableau Noire, a painted steel stabile sculpture completed by Alexander Calder in 1970 (estimate: $2,500,000-3,500,000), four works by Donald Judd including Untitled, 1980, a signature Judd stack comprised of 10 units of stainless steel and red anodized aluminum (estimate: $2,000,000-3,000,000) and Roy Lichtenstein’s Girl in Mirror, 1964 (estimate: $3,000,000-4,000,000) depicting a flaxen-haired woman smiling at her reflection in a hand mirror in porcelain enamel on steel.

Frank Stella’s Telluride, 1960-1961 (estimate: $4,000,000-6,000,000) is a rare and important example from his copper painting series, the majority are in museums and institutions. The T-shaped painting with striations in copper oil paint is a testament to Palevsky’s fondness for symmetry. Four lots by Richard Lindner are also slated to be sold in the Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale. Most notable is West 48th Street, 1964 (estimate: $600,000- 800,000) which shows a woman with breasts exposed wearing a fantastically-harsh metal corset juxtaposed with a ladylike handbag and opera-length gloves.

The standouts in the Antiquities auction on December 10, 2010 include: A Roman Marble Athena, circa 1st-2nd Century A.D. (estimate: $200,000-300,000), A Roman Marble Head of Aphrodite, circa 1st-2nd Century A.D. (estimate: $150,000- 250,000) and A Roman Marble Herm of a Draped Female, circa 1st-2nd century A.D. (estimate: $250,000-350,000).

Palevsky’s collection of Decorative Arts was international, but also focused on the richness of American decorative art in the early 20th century.  Christie’s 20th Century Decorative Arts & Design department will offer several pieces from The Collection of Max Palevsky on December 15th, 2010, including a group of leaded glass windows by the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright, Morris & Co. and Louis Sullivan; works by Tiffany Studios and an enameled silver vase by Archibald Knox for Liberty & Co. (estimate: $70,000-90,000).

On October 26, 2010, Christie’s will offer several works from The Collection of Max Palevsky in the Prints and Multiples Sale in New York.  The key features in that sale are Pablo Picasso, Buste de Femme au Chapeau, 1962 (estimate: $220,000-280,000) as well as several works by Roy Lichtenstein and Richard Lindner.