Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams, 1840-1916

As essential source for scholars and lovers of Redon, this marvelously illustrated biographical-critical study catalogs a traveling retrospective exhibit of the French symbolist's works. Drawing on recently released archival material, an international team of scholars led by exhibition curator Druick present evidence that Redon suffered from childhood epilepsy, which his parents attempted to conceal. Feeling unloved and rejected by his Creole mother, Redon, raised apart from his siblings, married Camille Falte, a nurturing, practical Creole from the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean, a telegraph operator's daughter whom Redon, a rebel against his bourgeois class, idealized as a ``daughter of the people.'' Redon's affiliation with Romantic artists, his friendships with Gauguin, Huysmans and Gide, and his role as mentor of Nabis Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard are explored in a major work that features many hitherto-unseen pictures from private collections among the 550 illustrations (including 160 color plates). (Oct.)