Edgar Degas facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Edgar Degas
Self-portrait (Degas au porte-fusain), 1855
Born	Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas (1834-07-19)19 July 1834 Paris, France
Died	27 September 1917(1917-09-27) (aged 83) Paris, France
Nationality	French
Known for	Painting, sculpture, drawing
Notable work	The Bellelli Family (1858–1867) Woman with Chrysanthemums (1865) Chanteuse de Café (c. 1878) At the Milliner's (1882)
Movement	Impressionism
Signature

Edgar Degas (19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917) was a French artist. He is famous for his paintings: he was one of those who started Impressionism, although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints, and drawings.

He is identified with the subject of the dance, and over half of his works depict dancers. These display his mastery in the depiction of movement. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and the way they show human isolation.

His life

He was born in Paris, France. He began to paint early in his life. Because his father wanted it, he went to university to become a lawyer in 1853. Edgar did not like this, and he went to study at the École des Beaux-Arts, an important art-school in Paris in 1855. In 1856 he traveled to Naples in Italy, he stayed there for 3 years. He studied famous painters like Michelangelo and Raphael and learnt by copying their work.

In 1859 he came back to Paris. He started his first important painting The Bellelli Family, and also started on a few paintings on historical myths, like Alexander and Bucephalus and The Daughter of Jephthah. In 1861 he visited Normandy and made his first drawings of horses which were an important subject for his paintings.

After the start of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Degas worked for the National Guard. He did not have time to paint. After the war he went to stay with his brother Rene in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1873 he went back to Paris and in 1874 his father died. He then found out his brother had large business debts. Edgar had to sell the house and a collection of art he had inherited. He now had to depend on his paintings for his income. He created a lot of great paintings in next 10 years. With the money he earned, he bought paintings by painters he liked a lot. Examples are Manet, Paul Cézanne, Pissarro, Gauguin, Van Gogh and others.

In 1874 Edgar Degas and a group of other painters started to organise their own art exhibition. Their exhibitions were called "Impressionist Exhibitions". At the end of the 1880s, he started to take photographs of his friends. Other photographs of dancers were used as an example for some of his later paintings.

As the years passed, Degas became isolated. He made sculptures up until 1910. He probably stopped working in 1912. He never married, and he was nearly blind at the end of his life. He died in Paris in 1917. Degas left more than 2,000 oil paintings and pastels and 150 sculptures.

Images for kids

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  Edgar Degas c. 1855–1860

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  A Cotton Office in New Orleans, 1873

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  The Dance Class (La Classe de Danse), 1873–1876, oil on canvas

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  L'Absinthe, 1876, oil on canvas

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  Place de la Concorde, 1875, oil on canvas, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

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  Musicians in the Orchestra, 1872, oil on canvas

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  At the Races, 1877–1880, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

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  Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, 1878–1881, National Gallery of Art

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  Dancers, 1900, Princeton University Art Museum

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  Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt Seated, Holding Cards, c. 1880–1884, oil on canvas, National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC (NPG.84.34)

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  Mary Cassatt, Self-Portrait, c. 1880, gouache and watercolor over graphite on paper, National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC (NPG.76.33)

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  Little Dancer of Fourteen Years Cast posthumously in 1922 from a mixed-media sculpture modeled c. 1879–1880 Bronze Partly tinted, with cotton skirt and satin hair ribbon, on a wooden base Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City