The story of French impresario, dandy and anarchist Félix Fénéon’s extraordinary influence on early modernism
“It would not be a commonplace portrait at all, but a carefully composed picture, with very carefully arranged colors and lines. A rhythmic and angular pose. A decorative Félix, entering with his hat or a flower in his hand.” With these words, in 1890, Paul Signac described to Félix Fénéon the extraordinary portrait he was dedicating to him. In it, Signac paid homage to Fénéon’s distinctive appearance, his generous but enigmatic personality and his innovative approach to modernism.
Signac’s portrait spotlights a figure who often chose to remain behind the scenes. But Fénéon’s impact―as a writer, dealer, publisher, curator, collector and anarchist―was tremendous. Fénéon helped define the movement known as neoimpressionism, a term he himself coined in the 1880s; he helped launch the careers of Seurat, Signac, Bonnard, Matisse and Modigliani; he was the first editor of the work of Rimbaud and Lautréamont; and he was active in anarchist circles, notoriously so in 1894, following the bombing of a restaurant popular among politicians and financiers, for which he was arrested and acquitted.
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