MADRID.- Fundacion Mapfre has opened the Odilon Redon and Lewis Hine exhibitions, which can be visited at the Recoletos Rooms (Paseo de Recoletos 23, Madrid) until 29 April.

The Odilon Redon (Bordeaux, 1840 - Paris, 1916) exhibition, produced in collaboration with the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, is the first major retrospective of this French artist’s oeuvre in Spain.

The exhibition’s chronological trajectory begins with his early years as a lithographer under the guidance of Rodolphe Bresdin, and reaches the period of colour and his grand pieces, from what he called his noirs —in the atmosphere of the symbolists— to his mythological scenes and The Chariot of Apollo, an ode to light. This path of shade and light followed by the artist has no comparison in the history of art and is presented in this exhibition through a selection of 170 masterpieces from various institutions, which include oils, drawings, etchings, decorative panels and sketches for textiles.

Also included in the exhibition are works from the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux and the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe, as well as from important, foreign private collections.

The Lewis Hine (Wisconsin, 1874–New York, 1940) exhibition comprises 170 images —mostly vintage— offering a complete overview of his photographic career, and situates Hine in the artistic, political and cultural context of his times, from his early portraits of immigrants disembarking on Ellis Island (New York) and child workers, to his work in Europe for the American Red Cross at the end of World War I, or a series on the construction of the Empire State Building in New York.

Likewise, the trajectory is accompanied by period documents and publications —some of which are being shown for the first time ever— acquired by George Eastman House, with which Hine promoted social causes, such as improvements in housing or the eradication of illegal workshops.

This exhibition is the outcome of a co-production between FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE (Madrid), Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson (Paris), where it was presented in late 2011, and Nederlands Fotomuseum (Rotterdam), where it will open in late 2012.