Posts in Category: july 19

Edgar Degas

On April 14, 2025 - 19th Century, 20th Century, French, july 19

Edgar Degas, July 19, 1834 – September 27, 1917, was a French painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and photographer associated with the Impressionist movement. Born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar de Gas in Paris, he came from a prosperous banking family with connections in France and Italy. He studied at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and briefly enrolled in law before turning to art. Degas trained under Louis Lamothe, a pupil of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and copied extensively in the Louvre while also studying the works of Renaissance and seventeenth-century masters in Italy. His early ambition was to become a history painter, and his formative years included extended stays in Naples, Rome, and Florence.

Degas worked in oil, pastel, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and photography. Although associated with the Impressionists and a participant in most of their exhibitions, he maintained an independent position and preferred studio work to outdoor painting. His subjects included ballet dancers, singers, musicians, milliners, laundresses, racehorses, cafés, theaters, and scenes of modern Parisian life, as well as portraits and self-portraits. His art combined rigorous draftsmanship with unusual viewpoints, cropped compositions, and close observation of movement. He was associated with artists including Édouard Manet, Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Paul Cézanne, while remaining distinct from them in both method and subject matter.

Degas did not maintain a formal teaching studio, but he influenced numerous younger artists through his exhibitions, friendships, and technical innovations, particularly in pastel and printmaking. He was an important supporter and mentor of Mary Cassatt and maintained connections with many artists of the Impressionist circle. His work is held by major collections including the Musée d’Orsay, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago, Hermitage Museum, National Gallery of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Detroit Institute of Arts, and many other institutions throughout Europe, North America, and Asia.