Koller View 2/22

8 Odilon Redon ‘La Fuite’ is part of Redon’s mature work and, although painted in oil on canvas, has the powdery quality of a pastel. The identity of the naked woman, and the rea- son she is fleeing, remain a mystery. Apparently, the motif was more important to the artist than the pos- sible mythological narrative behind it. Redon’s palette brightened after the dark years of his ‘Noirs’, and in this phase, sheer explosions of colour characterised his work. The birth of his second son Arï in 1889 was appa- rently the trigger for thisdevelopment. Thesymbolically chargedworks he produced fromthen on, which some- times penetrated far into abstraction, not only inspired the Nabis (with whom he exhibited at the Durand-Ruel gallery) and the Fauvists, but also the Surrealists, who admired Redon and his multi-layered compositions. La Fuite. 1910. Oil on canvas. 66 × 51 cm. Estimate: CHF 250 000/350 000 Impressionist & Modern Art, 1 July 2022