
Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago
AT-00004322Strange Flower (Little Sister of the Poor)
by Odilon Redon
Inscriptions
Signed lower right, in black chalk: "ODILON REDON"
Provenance
Sold by the artist to Ambroise Vollard (1867-1939), Paris, December 30, 1897. Henri Petiet (1894-1980), Paris, 1940; sold to the Art Institute, 1950.
Exhibition history
The Art Institute of Chicago, " Unpublished Drawings for the Temptation of St. Anthony by Odilon Redon, lent by Jean Goriany, New York," July 26, 1941-April 30, 1942. Paris, Salle du Journal, "Le Gallois," "Deuxième Exposition des dessins de M. Odilon Redon," 1882. Paris, Musée des Arts Decoratifs, "Odilon Redon, Exposition Rétrospective de son oeuvre," March 1926, cat. 235. New York, The Museum of Modern Art, "Redon, Drawings and Lithographs," 1952, cat. 7. Palm Beach, Fla. Society of the Four Arts, "Odilon Redon," 1955, cat. 45. New York, The Museum of Modern Art, "Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau, Rodolphe Bresdin," December 4, 1961-February 4, 1962, cat. 107; traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, March 2-April 15, 1962. The Art Institute of Chicago, "Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams," June 9-September 18, 1994, cat. 55, cat. by Douglas Druick et al; traveled to Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, October 20, 1994-January 15, 1995; and London, the Royal Academy of Arts, February 16-May 21, 1995. Gifu, Japan, The Museum of Fine Arts, "Odilon Redon --Le souci de l'absolu (Search for the Absolute)," October 8, 2002-December 8, 2002, cat. 47; traveled to Shimane, Japan, Shimane Art Museum, August 2, 2002-September 23, 2002. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Art Institute of Chicago, "Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde," 2006-2007; shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 14, 2006-January 7, 2007, and The Art Institute of Chicago, February 17-May 13, 2007. The Art Institute of Chicago, "Strange Realities: The Symbolist Imagination", October 4, 2025 - January 5, 2026.
Publications
Emile Hennequin, "Beaux Arts: Odilon Redon," La Revue Litteraire et Artistique (March 4, 1882), p. 137. Joris Karl Huysmans, "Le Salon Officiel de 1881," and "Appendice," L'Art Moderne (Paris, 1883), p. 299. Hugh Edwards, "Redon, Flaubert, Vollard," Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago, 36 (1942), p. 4 (ill.). Roseline Bacou, Odilon Redon (Geneva, 1956), p. 70, note 3. Klaus Berger, Odilon Redon, Fantasy and Colour, translated by Michael Bullock (New York, 1965 ), p. 224, no. 615. The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly, 55:5 (1961), (ill. on cover). Igor Gazdik, Odilon Redon (Bratislava, 1971), no. 13 (ill.). Jean Selz, Odilon Redon, translated by Eileen Hennessy (Naefels, 1978), p. 35 (ill.). Harold Joachim and Sandra Haller Olsen, French Drawings and Sketchbooks of the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1979), p. 79, 4D11. Diane Kelder, L'Heritage de L'Impressionisme (Paris, 1986), p. 121 (ill). Jean Vialla, Odilon Redon (Paris, 1988), p. 82 (ill.). Steven Frederick Eisenman, The Temptation of Saint Redon: Biography, Ideology, and Style in the Noirs of Odilon Redon (Chicago, 1992), p. 146, fig. 111. Alec Wildenstein, Odilon Redon: Catalogue Raisonné de l'Oeuvre Peint et Dessiné 2 (Paris, 1994), p. 232, no. 1183 (ill.). Barbara Larson, The Dark Side of Nature: Science, Society, and the Fantastic in the Work of Odilon Redon (University Park, Penn., 2005), pp. ix, 78, and 79, fig. 66.
Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Odilon Redon / French, 1840-1916
- Date
- 1880
- Medium
- Various charcoals, with touches of black chalk and black Conté crayon, stumping, incising and erasing, on yellowish cream wove paper altered to a golden tone
- Dimensions
- 40.4 × 33.2 cm (15 15/16 × 13 1/8 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- charcoal
- Style
- Post-Impressionism
- Place
- France
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- David Adler Collection
- Accession no.
- 1950.1433
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