Edgar Degas

The Life

Born into a prosperous Parisian banking family, Edgar Degas received a rigorous classical training and revered the draughtsmanship of Ingres. Though he exhibited with the Impressionists and helped organise their shows, he rejected the label, calling himself a realist devoted to line and studied composition. Across his long life he returned again and again to the ballet, the racecourse, the milliner and the bather, and as his eyesight failed he turned increasingly to the softer, more forgiving medium of pastel.

The Hand

A supreme draughtsman, Degas built his pictures on daring, off-centre croppings and unexpected vantage points learned from photography and Japanese woodblock prints. His late pastels are laid in luminous, hatched layers of pure colour, catching the fleeting torsion of a body in motion as no painter had before.

The Legacy

He redefined how modern life could be composed on canvas, and his obsessive study of the dancer gave the world its enduring image of ballet. His influence runs through Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso and the whole modern language of the cropped, candid, momentary view.

The Market

Degas remains a blue-chip name of the Impressionist era; his pastels, ballet scenes and rare bronzes — above all the celebrated Little Dancer — command many millions whenever fine examples reach the market.