Drawings by Odilon Redon (1840-1916)

Thanks to the donation in 1984 by Arï Redon, Odilon Redon’s son, the Musée d'Orsay has a beautiful collection of the artist’s drawings. As with all drawings, these cannot be on permanent display because of their fragile nature, so this display offers the visitor a chance to admire works from his “black period”, charcoal drawings from the 1870s and 1880s, which occupy a fundamental place in the history of European symbolism.

The four great Redon albums, fully restored in 2006, are also exhibited here, as are the studio drawings, which give a better understanding of the complex relationship between Naturalism and Symbolism.