L’Homme au Baton

Public Domain

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Artist Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916)French, 1840–1916

CultureFrench

Titles

L’Homme au Baton

Datec. 1905

MediumOil on board

DimensionsPanel: 19 × 15 1/8 in. (48.3 × 38.4 cm)
Frame: 28 7/16 × 24 11/16 × 2 3/8 in. (72.2 × 62.7 × 6 cm)

Credit LineBequest of Will L. McLendon in memory of Norbert Choucroun

Object number2026.20

Not on view

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Department

Prints and Drawings

Object Type

PAINTING

ProvenanceWalter P. Chrysler, Provincetown, Massachusetts, c. 1962 [1]; possibly Estate of Walter P. Chrysler, 1988–1989; [possibly his sale, Sotheby’s New York, 1989]; Will L. McLendon (1925–2025) [2], Houston; bequeathed to MFAH, 2026.

[1] Walter Percy Chrysler, Jr., heir to the Chrysler Corporation, was an American businessman and important collector of art. From the 1930s to the 1980s, he amassed a diverse collection of ancient art, sixteenth- to nineteenth-century European painting and sculpture, European and American modernism, and photography. He gifted the majority of his collection to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. Chrysler’s father was Walter Chrysler, Sr., the American automotive industrialist and founder of the Chrysler Corporation. In 1923, when the older Chrysler’s responsibilities shifted from automotive production in Detroit to corporate administration in New York City, the family moved to Kings Point, Long Island. While attending the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, Chrysler acquired his first work of art, a watercolor by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. He later attended Dartmouth College and founded a campus publishing company, Cheshire House, and Five Arts magazine with friend and fellow student Nelson A. Rockefeller. Chrysler left school in 1931 and spent several months traveling through Europe. While abroad, he met Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso, and purchased small works on paper from each of them. Chrysler joined the family business upon his return to New York later that year. In 1934, he established the Airtemp branch of the Chrysler Corporation, bringing air-conditioning systems to automobiles for the first time. He became president of the Chrysler Corporation the following year.Around this same time, Chrysler began frequenting New York galleries to purchase works of European and American modernism for the small art collection he had been building since boarding school. Chrysler also proved instrumental in the early stages of The Museum of Modern Art; he served as the museum’s first library chairman, contributing resources on Dada and Surrealism, and lent generously to exhibitions throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Upon America’s entry into World War II, Chrysler joined the U.S. Navy, working in Naval Avionics in Quonset Point, Long Island. Following the war, he used his inheritance to focus on his activities as a collector and cultural patron. He purchased the empty Center Methodist Episcopal Church in Provincetown, Massachusetts to house the Chrysler Art Museum of Provincetown, which opened in 1958. In 1962 his collection was exhibited at the National Gallery of Canada. The Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences agreed to become the Chrysler Museum of Art as long as Chrysler’s collection was gifted to the institution upon his death. The new museum opened in 1971, and Chrysler served as director until 1976. He remained an active member of the Board of Trustees until his death in 1988. (See Collecting with Vision: Treasures from the Chrysler Museum of Art. Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2007.)

[2] Will McLendon was professor of French literature and linguistics beginning at Texas Tech, then at S. M. U., and for the major part of his career at the University of Houston for 38 years, where he served for nine years as chairman of the French Department. He was awarded the Palmes Académiques by the French Ministry of Education in 1965 and later promoted to the rank of Officier for his publications and other contributions to the advancement of French culture. Dr. McLendon published three books and over 25 articles in both French and English in American and international literary journals. He received the Master Teacher Award from the University of Houston in 1990. Upon retirement from professional duties in 1991 as Professor Emeritus Will assumed business activities with his partner of 47 years, Norbert Choucroun, who died in 1996 in Houston.
Exhibition HistoryProvincetown, Massachusetts, Chrysler Art Museum of Provincetown and National gallery of Canada, Ottawa, The Controversial Century: 1850‒1950: Paintings from the Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., exh. cat. Ottawa: National Gallery of Art Canada, 1962, n.p., illus. (as Figures Mystiques).
Published References Wildenstein, Alec. Odilon Redon: Catalogue Raisonné de L’Oeuvre Peinte et Dessiné. Paris: Wildenstein Institute, 1992-1998. Vol. I (Portraits et figures), text by Agnès Lacau St. Guily and Marie-Christine Decroocq. p. 261, Cat. 670, illus. (color). Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Recto: Signed, lower left: Odilon Redon

Catalogue raisonnéWildenstein, Alec. Odilon Redon: Catalogue Raisonné de L’Oeuvre Peinte et Dessiné. Paris: Wildenstein Institute, 1992-1998. Vol. I (Portraits et figures), p. 261, Cat. 670, illus. (color).

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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