The Well-Dressed Anarchist

Félix Fénéon (1861–1944) is best known today as the effete dandy—top hat, gloves and cane in one hand, the other delicately tendering a cyclamen—in what Paul Signac called a “painted biography” of his dear friend. Considered one of the Museum of Modern Art’s fin de siècle masterpieces, the portrait bears an ornate title: Opus 217: Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. F&e