1902
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Pierre Bonnard is a 1902 by Odilon Redon, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a man’s face in profile—sharp nose, soft beard, eyes half-closed as if lost in thought. The lines are fine, almost like pencil on paper, but it’s actually a print. Redon made this portrait of his friend Pierre Bonnard, another painter. He only printed a few copies, so it feels private, like a secret shared between artists. The quiet mood fits Redon’s style: he cared more about dreams than details. To see more of this kind of work, look up technique: lithography.
Later in life, Odilon Redon turned to portraiture, creating likenesses of both commissioned sitters and his close friends. This print represents a figure central to his artistic and social milieu: Pierre Bonnard was a younger artist who admired Redon’s emphasis on interior states. Redon depicted only the head and profile of his subject, sketching Bonnard with fine and delicate detail. He produced just a small number of impressions of the lithograph, accentuating its personal and intimate theme.
Pierre Bonnard once said of Redon: “All of our generation fell under his charm and received his advice.”
Read the full account in the museum source.
Born Bertrand-Jean Redon on 20 April 1840 in Bordeaux, the artist adopted the name Odilon from his mother, Marie-Odile.
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