After a lonely childhood in the gloomy castle of Peyrelebade outside Bordeaux, Redon went to Paris in 1859 to train initially as an architect and then as a painter, joining the studio of the official painter Jean Léon Gêrome. There he did not fit in and he found more pleasure in studying Old Masters in the Louvre. In 1864 he returned to Bordeaux where he met the engraver Rodolphe Bresdin, from whom he learnt the black and white techniques. At first, he devoted himself almost entirely to charcoal drawings, providing the basis in technique and image for the 166 lithographs he produced between 1879 and 1899. From 1890 onwards, he introduced colour into his compositions and by 1900 his paintings had become a celebration of explosive colour. He expressed his ambiguous and disquieting world in religious subjects, portraits, landscapes and flower studies, often choosing pastel. The symbolist circles discovered his drawings and lithographs at his first one-man exhibitions of 1881 and 1882. They adopted him as one of them, finding in his work a spirit close to theirs. In 1884, the artist exhibited at the new ‘Salon des Indépendants’ as well as in Brussels the following year where he found an enthusiastic reception. In 1894, Durand-Ruel presented an important exhibition of his paintings and pastels. This led to the 1898 show at Ambroise Vollard’s, who from then onwards actively supported the artist. A contemporary of the Impressionists, Odilon Redon was imbued with the spirit of a very different world. As from 1890, he was acclaimed as the leader of the new symbolist movement but he went on developing a very personal style and he became a guide for the generations to come.