Otherworldly Visions, Odilon Redon Enters His Final Week at the Getty Center
The Getty’s Odilon Redon show of charcoal drawings, lithographs and pastels closes Sunday, October 18, at the Getty Center in Brentwood.
Two skeletons have finished their duel, and the bones glow out of a black ground. “The Battle of the Bones,” a charcoal and pastel drawing from about 1881, hangs in the Getty Center’s Odilon Redon exhibition, which the Getty lists as running July 14 through October 18. The museum is closed Mondays, so the show’s final week opens Tuesday.
Black First, Then Color
The Getty describes Redon, who lived from 1840 to 1916, as an artist of “haunting darkness and luminous color.” HeySoCal reported that the Bordeaux-born artist began almost exclusively in charcoal and black-and-white lithography, making shadowy “noirs” through the 1870s and 1880s. In the 1890s he took up pastel and oil paint and moved toward vivid color.
The show draws mainly on the Getty’s own holdings, with loans from other museums. The Beverly Press reported that it is organized into four sections covering his noir drawings, lithographs, print portfolios and later works in color, and that Danielle Canter, the Getty Museum’s assistant curator of drawings, organized it. “The Battle of the Bones” is a recent Getty acquisition, inspired by a passage from a poem by Maurice Bouchor, HeySoCal reported. Redon made the bones from blank areas of tan paper.
The Getty’s page also lists the 1893 lithograph “Light,” the 1888 lithograph “Everywhere Eyeballs Are Aflame,” the charcoal “Apparition,” the charcoal and pastel “Head within an Aureole,” from about 1894 to 1895, and the pastel and graphite portrait “Baronne de Domecy,” from about 1900. “Orpheus,” a pastel from about 1905, is lent by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Going After Dark
The last week includes one late night. The Getty Center’s visit page lists Saturday hours of 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., so October 17 is the one evening the galleries stay open past 6:30 p.m. The same page lists parking at $25 per car, $15 after 3 p.m. and $10 after 6 p.m., with parking free on Saturdays after 6 p.m. Admission is free but requires a timed-entry reservation. The exhibition page offers an audio tour in English and Spanish on the GettyGuide app.
Practical Details
“Odilon Redon, Otherworldly Visions” is in the Museum West Pavilion, Plaza Level, at the Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles 90049. It closes Sunday, October 18. Hours are Tuesday through Friday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. The museum is closed Monday. Reserve free timed entry online or by calling (310) 440-7300. The exhibition catalogue is listed at $24.95.
