Description
Inspired by Cleveland’s groundbreaking acquisitions of Odilon Redon’s artworks during the 1920s, local philanthropist and collector Leonard C. Hanna Jr. purchased this luminous pastel of a floral still life in 1937. Hanna acquired it from Jacques Seligmann, a dealer based in New York City and Paris who was fundamental in bringing 19th-century French art to American audiences. In 1939, Hanna loaned the pastel to the New York World’s Fair, where it represented Redon’s work. Those who saw it there were attracted to the vivid color and timeless subject, which preoccupied the artist at the end of his life.
Provenance
R. Kahn, New York (?-?); (Jacques Seligmann & Co., New York, sold to Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., Cleveland, OH) (?-1937); Leonard C. Hanna Jr. [1889-1957], Cleveland, OH, bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1937-1958); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1958-)
Accession Number
1958.46
Medium
pastel
Dimensions
Sheet: 84.1 x 58 cm (33 1/8 x 22 13/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Credit Line
Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.
Tags
Drawing Early Modern (1901–1950) Pastel French Color: Orange Color: Gold
Background & Context
Background Story
Vase of Flowers from 1916, the year of Redon's death, is one of his last works—a pastel that demonstrates the medium's unique suitability to his late vision of luminous, floating color. Pastel was Redon's preferred medium for his late flower paintings because it allowed him to layer color without the intermediary of oil medium, producing a directness and luminosity that oil painting could not match. The flowers in this late pastel seem to float in an atmospheric cloud of color, freed from the constraints of botanical accuracy and existing as pure chromatic experience.
Cultural Impact
Redon's late pastels are the culmination of his artistic journey from darkness to light. The pastel medium, with its direct application and its ability to layer color without mixing, was the perfect vehicle for the chromatic intensity that Redon achieved in his final years. The 1916 date makes this one of his very last works, and the luminous quality of the color suggests an artist who had found the light he had been searching for since abandoning the noirs of his youth.
Why It Matters
Vase of Flowers (1916) is Redon's last testament: pastel on paper, flowers floating in a cloud of luminous color, the artist of nightmares transformed into the painter of pure visual pleasure. The pastel medium allows the color to float on the surface of the paper, unmediated by oil or varnish—pure color, pure light, pure Redon.
