Curator, Starr Figura: In this last section in particular, there are a number of works by artists like Matisse, Modigliani, Seurat, Bonnard, as well as African and Oceanic objects that Fénéon once owned. They were stuffed together along with hundreds of other works in the succession of small apartments that he and his wife lived in, in Paris.
Author, Mitchell Abidor: He continues to be followed by the Parisian police. And as late as 1908, he's still being reported as an active anarchist militant. He never, ever gave up on his beliefs. So he remained a leftist to the end of his life.
Starr Figura: He did not want his works to go to the state because he was disappointed that the Louvre and other museums were not embracing and enthusiastically collecting the work of avant-garde French artists. During his lifetime, Fénéon was constantly buying and selling works of art from his collection. When he died, there were hundreds of paintings and hundreds of sculptures that were auctioned off. And you can see the catalogs for the four separate auctions in this gallery.
Mitchell Abidor: Everything that he was aiming at was like freeing humanity from the chains that they were living in. In a period full of interesting characters, Fénéon in his own quiet way, was one of the most fascinating.
