Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.
Odilon Redon was born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, to a prosperous family. The young BertrandJean Redon acquired the nickname Odilon from his mother, Odile. Redon started drawing as a child and, at the age of ten, he was awarded a drawing prize at school. He began the formal study of drawing at fifteen but, at his fathers insistence, he changed to architecture. Failure to pass the entrance exams at Paris cole des BeauxArts ended any plans for a career as an architect, although he briefly studied painting there under JeanLon Grme in 1864.
Source: Wikipedia