Cats in Art - part 3

This series features cats in art. Cats have been depicted in paintings and drawings by both unknown and famous artists throughout time. This series begins in 1400 BC through to 1997 AD.

For earlier works see parts 1 & 2.

This is part 3 of 5-part series on Cats in Art:

1884 Jeppe by Bruno Andreas Liljefors (1860-1939)
oil on canvas laid on panel 48 x 31.5 cm

1885 Girl with a Black Cat by Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931)
oil on canvas 55.9 x 40.6 cm
Instituto Matteucci, Viareggio, Italy

Giovanni Boldini was an Italian genre and portrait painter who lived and worked in Paris for most of his career. According to a 1933 article in Time magazine, he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting.

Boldini was born in Ferrara, Italy on 31 December 1842. He was the son of a painter of religious subjects, and the younger brother of architect Luigi (Louis) Boldini. In 1862, he went to Florence for six years to study and pursue painting. He only infrequently attended classes at the Academy of Fine Arts, but in Florence, met other realist painters known as the Macchiaioli, who were Italian precursors to Impressionism. Their influence is seen in Boldini’s landscapes which show his spontaneous response to nature, although it is for his portraits that he became best known.

1886 Cat and Lantern Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915)
woodblock print

Kobayashi Kiyochika was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, best known for his colour woodblock prints and newspaper illustrations. His work documents the rapid modernization and Westernization Japan underwent during the Meiji period and employs a sense of light and shade called kōsen-ga inspired by Western art techniques. His work first found an audience in the 1870s with prints of red-brick buildings and trains that had proliferated after the Meiji Restoration; his prints of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 were also popular. Woodblock printing fell out of favour during this period, and many collectors consider Kobayashi's work the last significant example of ukiyo-e.

1886 Jeppe the Cat in the Spring Sun by Bruno Andreas Liljefors (1860-1939)
oil on canvas 56.5 x 41 cm
Private Collection

1886 Playing with the Cat by Carl Reichert (1836-1918)
oil on wood panel 23 x 17.5 cm

1887 A rival attraction by Charles Burton Barber (1845-1894)

1887 Cat on a Flowerbed by Bruno Andreas Liljefors
 (1860-1939)
oil on canvas 61 x 76 cm

1887 Child with Cat (Julie Manet) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
oil on canvas 65 x 54 cm
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

1888 Girl with Two Kittens by Albert Anker
Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland

1888 Tiresome by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892)
woodblock print

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi is often called the last great master of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings, whose original name was Owariya Yonejirô. Gifted, imaginative, and innovative, Yoshitoshi worked from the end of the Edo period until more than two decades into the Meiji period over the course of a 40-year career. He witnessed the collapse of the old feudal order and the embrace of Western culture and technology, which had a profound effect on Japanese society beginning with the signing of treaties opening up Japan to foreign trade in 1854. One senses this turmoil in much of Yoshitoshi's oeuvre as he sought to maintain previous cultural norms and artistic aims while also assimilating some of the new aspects of "enlightenment."

1889 Jeppe the Cat  by Bruno Andreas Liljefors (1860-1939)
oil on canvas 

1890-1910s Black and White Cat with Orange Ball
unsigned American Folk Art

Unsigned American Folk Art: In November 2007 an auction sale featured the American folk art collection of Watt and Jan White. Top lot for the day, was an outstanding late 19th or early 20th-century American folk art portrait of a black-and-white cat with orange ball. The elemental composition, with strong lines and expressive subject, was pursued by no fewer than five phone bidders. Ultimately, it was an East Coast figure in the trade bidding on the internet on behalf a client who prevailed, pushing the final price to $152,100 and a world record price for an American folk art cat portrait.

c1890 Girl with Cats by Carl Emil Mücke (aka Dusseldorf)
(1847-1923)
oil

Carl Emil Mücke was a genre painter of mostly domestic interior scenes with women, girls and lively cats and kittens. The son of the painter Heinrich Mucke, Carl attended the same school. Later he became the student of Wilhelm Sohn.

c1891 My Wife's Lovers by Carl Kahler (1856-1906)
oil on canvas 180 x 260 cm

Carl Kahler, also Karl Kahler was an Austrian genre and animal painter, particularly known for his paintings of cats. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, with Ludwig von Löfftz and Wilhelm Linden Schmit the Younger. After the end of his studies at the Academy, he spent some time studying in Paris, before settling in Munich. 

Between 1881 and 1888 he exhibited his works Berlin, in Munich and Vienna. In 1885 he emigrated to Australia, and worked until 1890 in Melbourne. He later emigrated to the United States. In 1891, commissioned by Kate Birdsall Johnson, he painted the picture My Wife’s Lovers depicting 42 cats, which became extremely well known as a published print. From the time of this work he became increasingly known for his paintings of cats.

Kahler died aged 49 years in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

c1891 Portrait of Pierre Loti by Henri Rousseau (1844-1910)
oil on canvas 62 x 52 cm
Kunsthaus, Zurich

Henri Rousseau's modest background belied his aspirations. Born in 1844 in Laval, a market town in northwest France, he was a provincial transplant to Paris who was impoverished for most of his life. He worked as a customs clerk on the outskirts of the city, a post that earned him the nickname Le Douanier (the customs agent). A self-taught artist, Rousseau was unable to paint full time until his retirement in 1893. Despite these inauspicious circumstances, he hoped to join the refined artists of the staunchly conservative French Academy.

He was best known for his bold pictures of the jungle, teeming with flora and fauna. Yet this painter of exotic locales never left France, notwithstanding stories to the contrary. His paintings were instead the concoctions of a city dweller, shaped by visits to the botanical gardens, the zoo, and colonial expositions as well as images of distant lands seen in books and magazines. A counterpoint to his pictures of a tranquil and familiar Paris, these images of seductive and terrifying faraway places reflected the desires and fears of new modern world.

In the end, Rousseau's work found enthusiastic acceptance outside the establishment: he was championed by a younger generation of avant-garde artists and writers, including Alfred Jarry, Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay, and Pablo Picasso.

Note: Two series on the works of Henri Rousseau can be found in the index of this blog.

1892 Young Girl with a Cat by Berthe Morisot (1841-1892
oil on canvas 55 x 46 cm
Private Collection

before 1893 A Silver Tabby on a Chair by Horatio Henry Couldery (1832-1893)
oil on canvas 54.6 x 43.8 cm

Horatio Henry Couldery (1832–1918) was an English animal painter and illustrator noted especially for his depictions of domestic cats, kittens and dogs. He was born in Lewisham, London, and trained as a cabinetmaker before abandoning that trade to study art at the Royal Academy of Arts, and exhibited there as well as at the British Institution, the Royal Society of British Artists gallery in Suffolk Street, and other notable galleries both in the capital and the regions.

He worked as a professional artist, illustrating children’s books and greeting cards as well as creating commissioned pieces. Couldery painted with a sense of humour, often portraying animals in mischievous situations that successfully captured the character and personality of beloved pets. He was noted for his skillful depiction of the texture of animal fur in minute detail. His work, with its great attention to detail, was highly regarded by art critic John Ruskin.

before 1893 Cats by a Fishbowl by Horatio Henry Couldery (1832-1893)
oil on canvas 45.5 x 61 cm

before 1893 Curiosity by Horatio Henry Couldery (1832-1893)
oil on canvas 60 x 83 cm

before 1893 The First Lesson by Horatio Henry Couldery (1832-1893)
oil on panel 12.7 x 20.3 cm

before 1893 Visiting Time by Horatio Henry Couldery
(1832-1893)
oil on canvas 76.8 x 64.8 cm

1894 Suspense by Charles Burton Barber (1845-1894)
oil on canvas 78 x 98 cm

1894 Two Cats by Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923)
Exhibition Poster
lithograph and watercolour 59.1 x 48.7 cm

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen was a French-Swiss artist best known for his Art Nouveau poster designs and paintings. Steilen often depicted animals, specifically cats, as well as the bohemian cabaret culture of turn-of-the-century Paris. Cats appealed to Steinlen for their charm, movement, and character, as well as for their symbolic properties. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Steinlen studied design at the University of Lausanne, before moving to Paris. Amidst the artistic avant-garde in Montmarte, it was at the notorious Le Chat Noir club, that Steinlen met artists like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Louis Anquetin, Adolphe Willette, and Félis Calloton. He produced advertisements for the Le Chat Noir, and found artistic recognition through frequent exhibitions at the Salon des Indépendants. The artist died on December 13, 1923 in Paris, France. Today, his works are in the collections of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

1895 A Girl With Kittens  by Ivan Gorokhov (1863-1934)
Private Collection

Ivan Lavrentievich Gorokhov was born to the family of a former serf. At an early age, he began to draw scenes from nature but was needed on the farm and was not allowed to pursue his interests. Word of his talent spread, however, and attracted the attention of a local landowner, Vladimir von Meck, son of the businessman, Karl von Meck. He showed some of Ivan's drawings to one of his guests, Nikolai Rubinstein, who joined with Von Meck to provide financial support so Ivan could attend the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. However, despite the support of influential people, he was unable to get enough work to afford living in Moscow and returned to his native village, but found it just as hard to establish himself there. It was necessary to travel to Moscow to purchase art supplies or show his works, and this was often too expensive. This was eased somewhat when he became associated with the Peredvizhniki in 1893 and received positive reviews at their 21st exhibition. Some of his works were purchased by members of the Imperial family.

before 1895 Playing with the Kitten by Émile Munier (1840-1895)
oil on canvas

before 1896 The Bachelor Party by Louis Wain (1860-1887)
oil on canvas 29.5 x 60 cm

Louis Wain’s father was a traveller for a textile firm: his mother, of French emigré descent, designed church embroideries and carpets. He studied at the West London School of Art, and began his career as an art journalist, drawing many different subjects. However, it was for his pictures of cats that he eventually became famous. From the 1880s until the outbreak of the first world war, the ‘Louis Wain cat’ was hugely popular. Appearing in vast quantities in prints, books, magazines, post-cards and annuals, Wain’s cats are to be found engaging in every form of human activity - from playing cricket, digging up roads, and riding bicycles, to parading the latest fashions at Ascot and making pompous after-dinner speeches at the club.

Despite his fame Wain never made much money, being highly impractical in business matters, and during the war he began to suffer real poverty. Always known as being somewhat eccentric, he now began to develop signs of serious mental disorder. Previously a mild and gentle man, he became increasingly suspicious, abusive, and occasionally even violent towards his sisters with whom he lived.

Eventually, in June 1924, he was certified insane and committed to Springfield Hospital (the former Surrey County Asylum) at Tooting. ‘Discovered’ here the following year, he was transferred to Bethlem Hospital after a campaign by admirers of his work, including the Prime Minister Ramsey Macdonald. Macdonald later arranged for the Wain sisters to receive a small Civil List pension in recognition of their brother’s services to popular art.

In 1930 Louis Wain was transferred to Napsbury Hospital, near St Albans. He continued drawing until near the end of his life, and exhibitions of his work were held in London in 1931 and 1937, as well as a memorial exhibition shortly after his death. He died at Napsbury on 4 July 1939.

1896 Black and Red by John White Alexander (1856-1915)

John White Alexander was an American portrait, figure, and decorative painter and illustrator, born in Allegheny, now a part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He moved to New York City at the age of 18 and worked in an office at Harpers Weekly, where he was an illustrator and political cartoonist. After an apprenticeship of three years, he traveled to Munich for his first formal training. Owing to the lack of funds, he removed to the village of Polling, Bavaria, and worked with Frank Deveneck. They traveled to Venice, where he profited by the advice of Whistler, and then he continued his studies in Florence, Italy; the Netherlands; and Paris.

In 1881, he returned to New York City and speedily achieved great success in portraiture.

His first exhibition in the Paris Salon of 1893 was a brilliant success and was followed by his immediate election to the Société National des Beaux Arts. In 1901, he was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and in 1902, he became a member of the National Academy of Design, where he served as president from 1909 to 1915. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and President of the National Society of Mural Painters. Among the gold medals received by him were those of the Paris Exposition (1900) and the World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri (1904). He served as President of the National Society of Mural Painters from 1914 to 1915.

1896 Eiaha Ohipa (Not working) by Paul Gauguin 1848-1903)
oil on canvas 65 x 75 cm
Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

Gauguin was born in Paris, the son of a journalist. He began his career in the merchant navy and then in 1871 became a stockbroker; he also took up painting. His early works are influenced by Pissarro, with whom he worked in 1879 and 1881.

He showed works in the later Impressionist exhibitions (1880-6), subsequently developing the style known as Synthetism during visits to Pont-Aven in Brittany (1886-90). In 1888 he worked briefly with Van Gogh in Arles. Gauguin was faced with increasing poverty after retiring from stockbroking in 1883 and in 1891 he left Paris to work in Tahiti, where many of his most famous paintings were produced ('Nevermore', 1897, London, Courtauld Institute Galleries). He returned to Paris in 1893, but in 1895 went back to the South Seas and in 1901 moved to the Marquesas Islands, where he died. Public recognition of his talent came posthumously with an exhibition of his work in Paris in 1906.

1896 Kitten by Henriëtte Ronner-Knip
oil on panel 27 x 40 cm
Teylers Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands

1896 La Paresse (Laziness) by Félix Edouard Vallotton
(1865-1925)
woodcut printed in black on ivory wove paper 17.7 x 22.2 cm (image)
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

Félix Vallotton was a Swiss-born French painter and printmaker known for his precise use of line and exacting forms. In his depictions of sensuous nudes, stage-like interiors, and landscapes at sunset, Vallotton conjured a sense that something mysterious lay beneath his scenes. In 1882 he moved to Paris, where he studied under Jules Joseph Lefebvre at the Académie Julian. Initially producing portraits grounded in the academic tradition, Vallotton was inspired by works he observed at the Louvre, by Hans Holbein, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Inges, and Albrecht Dürer. A decade later in 1892, Vallotton had become a part of the milieu of artists known as Les Nabis, which included Pierre Bonnard. Maurice Denis, and Édouard Vuillard.The ideas espoused by the Nabis coincided with Vallotton’s own interests, as he had already begun producing wood cuts inspired by the flat colours and silhouetted forms of Japanese ukiyo-e prints. From 1910 onward, his works had become increasingly stylised, with tightly outlined forms and naturalistic colors. Vallotton died at age of 60 on December 29, 1925 in Paris, France. Today, his works are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, among others.

Note: A series on the works of Félix Vallotton can be found in the index of this blog.

1896 Tournée le Chat Noir by Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923)
lithographic poster 91 x 61 cm

c1896 The Green Dress by John White Alexander (1856-1915)
oil on canvas 99.1 x 53 cm

1897 Kittens at Play by Henriëtte Ronner-Knip (1821-1909)
oil on canvas 113 x 85 cm

1897 Kittens at Play by Henriëtte Ronner-Knip
oil on canvas 113 x 85 cm

1898 Man with the Cat (Henry Sturgis Drinker) by Cecilia Beaux (1855-1942)
oil on canvas 121.9 x 87.8 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

Beaux’s early interest in art was encouraged at home and school. By age 18, Beaux was earning her living through commercial art, making lithographs and painting on china while studying in Philadelphia. She completed her first medal-winning portrait in 1884. In 1888, after rejecting several marriage proposals, Beaux decided to devote herself to portraiture and studied in Europe for 19 months.Back in Philadelphia, Beaux painted prominent writers, politicians, and other artists. 

For many years, she taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Beaux’s pictures were widely exhibited in the United States, as well as in Paris and London. She moved to New York in 1898 and also built a summer house in Gloucester, Massachusetts, which became a popular stopping point for her distinguished clientele.Her reputation hit its peak during the 1930s when she received several major awards, including the Gold Medal at Exposition Universelle, Paris, in 1900; had two retrospective exhibitions; and published her autobiography. In 1933, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt presented Beaux with the Chi Omega fraternity’s gold medal, for “the American woman who had made the greatest contribution to the culture of the world.”

1898 Playtime by Henriëtte Ronner-Knip
oil on panel 34.9 x 31.7 cm

before 1899 White Cat by Clement Burlison (1815–1899)
oil on canvas 76.5 x 64 cm
Durham County Council, UK

Clement Burlison was born in April 1815 in Egglestone, Durham, England. Visiting his brother as a teenager in Darlington, he became apprenticed as a painter to a coach builder. He remained an apprentice until 1836 at the age of 21, when he started painting portraits for a living and earning good money for doing so. He then spent his time painting subjects around Darlington and Stockton, whilst saving to move to London. In 1838 he moved to Old Kent Road in London and soon developed a good business in portrait painting He eventually moved back to Durham.

1899 Four Kittens by Henriette Ronner-Knip
oil on panel 34.9 x 26.3 cm

1900 A Mother Cat watching her Kittens playing by Henriette Ronner-Knipoil
oil on panel 72 x 91 cm

before 1900 Cats and Parrot by Lambert Louis-Eugène
(1825-1900)
watercolour 34 x 44 cm

Louis Eugene Lambert (1825-1900, French) is famous for his paintings and drawings of cats and dogs, and was therefore nicknamed “Lambert of the cats”. A student of Eugene Delacroix, Lambert became interested in art as a young boy. Later he became influenced by the Flemish School.

1900 Idleness by John William Godward (1861-1922)
oil on canvas 111 x 73 cm

John William Godward was an English painter from the end of the Neo-Classicist era. He was a protégé of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, but his style of painting fell out of favour with the rise of modern art. The vast majority of Godward's extant images feature women in Classical dress posed against landscape features, although there are some semi-nude and fully nude figures included in his oeuvre.

Godward "quickly established a reputation for his paintings of young women in a classical setting and his ability to convey with sensitivity and technical mastery the feel of contrasting textures, flesh, marble, fur and fabrics." Godward's penchant for creating works of art set in the classical period probably came from the time period in which he was born. "The last full-scale classical revival in western painting bloomed in England in the 1860s and flowered there for the next three decades.”

c1900 Cat lying down basking by Ferdinand Henri Oger
(1872-1929)
engraving 51 x 69 cm)

Ferdinand Henri Oger was a French artist best known for his many portraits of cats as etchings and watercolours. He also depicted lions, dogs, cattle and horses. Little is known about the artist.

c1900 Figure of a Cat by Emile Gallé (1846-1904)
enamelled terra-cotta with glass details 34 cm high
Private Collection

Émile Gallé (1846 Nancy - 1904 Nancy) was a French artist and designer who worked in glass , and is considered to be one of the major innovators in the French Art Nouveau movement. He was noted for his designs of Art Nouveau glass art and Art Nouveau furniture, and was a founder of the École de Nancy or Nancy School, a movement of design in the city of Nancy.

1901 The Favourite by John William Godward (1861-1922)
oil on canvas 59.4 x 72.4 cm
Private Collection

1902 Girl with Cat by Henry Wolf (1852-1916)
photomechanical wood engraving on paper
Smithsonian American Art Museum

Henry Wolf was born in Eckwersheim, France. A wood engraver who lived and worked in the United States during his most influential work period and until his death. 

He had lived in Strasbourg and studied under Jacques Levy and exhibited in Paris. He moved to New York City in 1871, where he created wood engravings of the works of many famous artists. Many of his engravings were published in Scribner’s Magazine, Harpers Monthly, and Century Magazine. In 1896 he started engraving his own artwork. He exhibited 144 wood engravings at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. He was awarded the Exposition's Grand Prize in printmaking that year. His works are held in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

before 1903 An easy Target by John Henry Dolph (1835-1903)
oil on panel 17.8 x 25.4 cm

John Henry Dolph was a versatile and talented artist who became the foremost “cat-painter” in America. He was born in Fort Ann, New York.In 1841, his father Osmond relocated the family to Ashtabula County, Ohio. Eight years later, John Dolph began an apprenticeship as a carriage painter in Colmabus, Ohio. From 1855, he worked as a portrait painter in Cleveland and Detroit.

Dolph moved to New York City in 1864 where his works were annually exhibited in the National Academy of Design until 1900. By the end of the 1860s decade, he had also become a prominent landscape painter. From 1870 to 1873 he studied in Antwerp, Belgium, and took further studies in Paris from 1880 to 1882. Afterwards he specialised in painting pet animals such as dogs and cats. In New York, Dolph became a member of the Kit Kat Club of avant-garde artists, the Lotus Club and the Salmagundi Club. He was elected into the National Academy of Design in 1877 as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1898. Dolph lived in the Sherwood Studio Building at 57th and 6th streets. Sherwood Studio was the first apartment building in NYC made specifically for artists.

before 1903 Her favourite Pets by Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1823-1903)
oil on canvas 51 x 41 cm
Private Collection

1903 Girl With Cat by Albert Anker (1831-1910) 
watercolour
Private Collection

1903 Honourable Mr. Cat by Helen Hyde (1868-1919)
colour woodcut on paper 21.6 x 9.5 cm
Smithsonian American Art Museum

Helen Hyde was a printmaker and illustrator, was born in Lima, New York. At twelve she began art instruction under Ferdinand Richardt but it ended abruptly two years later when her father died and her family resettled in San Francisco. Helen and her mother moved to Philadelphia and, after her graduation from Wellesley School, she returned to San Francisco and studied at the School of Design. Hyde studied briefly at the Art Students League in New York between 1888 and 1889. The following year she departed on a four year sojourn in Europe, which included studying with Franz Skarbina in Berlin, Rafael Collins and Albert Sterner in Paris, and months in Holland and England.

In Paris, Hyde met Félix Régamey who introduced her to "loveliness of things Japanese" and this meeting was to have a profound effect on her life and work. Returning to San Francisco, Hyde sought out subjects in Chinatown and produced her first series of colour etchings. In 1899, Hyde travelled to Japan where she became an ardent student of the Japanese language and a student of classical brush painting with an Austrian artist working in Tokyo, and it was from him that she learned the skills of carving wood blocks. She eventually accepted the Japanese system of divided labour and employed Japanese carvers and printers (Shohiro Murate carved her woodcuts for eleven years).

Japan was Hyde's home until 1914 when she returned to the United States due to ill health. Hyde exhibited both nationally and internationally and her work won honours in Japan. She was awarded the gold medal at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exhibition in Seattle in 1909 and the bronze medal for woodcut at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. Hyde was a member of the Chicago Society of Etchers, the Printmakers Society of California, the Chicago Society of Artists and a life member of the Société de la Grauvre en Couleur.

1904 Young Woman with Cats by Lovis Corinth (1858-1925)
oil on canvas 78.5 x 60 cm
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany

Lovis Corinth was a painter, printmaker and draftsman. After eleven years of academic training in Königsberg, Munich, and Paris, he settled in Berlin in 1901. He quickly became a leading figure of the Berlin Secession. More than a generation older than the Expressionists, his long, prolific, and highly successful career extends from the academic tradition of the late nineteenth century to German Impressionism and finally Expressionism.

He made 1,200 prints, including many in portfolios and illustrated books. He first tried printmaking in 1890s as a way to improve his draftsmanship, but made most of his prints near the end of his career during the postwar economic crisis, when it became it a more marketable medium. Made only eleven woodcuts, but favoured lithography and drypoint. He worked with many publishers, including Paul Cassirer, and after 1920 closely collaborated with Verlag Fritz Gurlitt. Declaring them degenerate, Nazis removed 295 works from public collections.

1905 Bazon, the Artists Cat by Odilon Redon (1840-1916)
oil on canvas 38.5 x 55.5 cm
Private Collection

Odilon Redon was a French symbolist sainter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist. Early in his career, both before and after fighting in the Franco-Prussian War, he worked almost exclusively in charcoal and lithography, works referred to as noirs. He started gaining recognition after his drawings were mentioned in the 1884 novel À rebours (Against Nature) by Joris-Karl Huysmans. During the 1890s he began working in pastels and oils, which quickly became his favourite medium, abandoning his previous style of noirs completely after 1900. He also developed a keen interest in Hindu and Buddhist religion and culture, which increasingly showed in his work.

He is perhaps best known today for the "dreamlike" paintings created in the first decade of the 20th century, which were heavily inspired by Japanese art and which, while continuing to take inspiration from nature, heavily flirted with abstraction. His work is considered a precursor to both Dadaism and Surrealism.