Rodolphe Bresdin
Odilon Redon
Philippe Mohlitz
"Three Printmakers from Bordeaux" at Fitch-Febvrel Gallery
Art in Review, The New York Times, Friday, May 18, 1979, by John Russell
In one of the more inventive shows of the season, Fitch-Febvrel has coupled prints by two 19th century French masters, Odilon Redon and Rodolphe Bresdin, with the work of a contemporary artist, Philippe Mohlitz. What they have in common apart from their origins in Bordeaux is a highly personal imagery, swoony in the case of Redon, glassy and particularized in the case of Bresdin and Mr. Mohlitz. Bresdin was a seminal figure in the history of printmaking, in that he mingled a Dürerlike superabundance of detail with a sensibility that was right up to the minute. The chance of seeing his "Good Samaritan" in perfect state is not to be missed. The image here is what it should be: a thicket of meaning in which every twig stands out clearly.