Degas: Drawings and Sketchbooks at The Morgan Library & Museum

Edgar Degas
Three Studies of a Dancer, ca. 1880
black chalk, Conté crayon (?), and pink chalk, heightened with white chalk, on blue paper faded to light brown . Gift of a foundation in honor of Eugene and Clare Thaw, 2001

Degas: Drawings and Sketchbooks at The Morgan Library & Museum Edgar Degas (1834–1917), founding member of the Impressionist groupwho was distinguished by his Realist tendencies, is renowned for his vigorous images of dancers, performers,and theater scenes in paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. Throughout his career, he used drawing indynamic and varied ways to explore these recurring subjects.

September 24, 2010 – January 23, 2011

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Source: The Morgan Library & Museum
Degas began studying law in Paris in 1853, though he soon turned his attention to copying works in theLouvre. Later, he entered the studio of Louis Lamothe, who was a pupil of Ingres and also studied at theÉcole des Beaux-Arts. He left Paris in July 1856 to study independently in Rome, where he filledsketchbooks and sheets with studies of models and copies of old masters. Study of a Male Nude dates from hisfirst year in Rome and reflects the artist’s early academic efforts.

Thirty-eight sketchbooks by Degas have survived essentially intact. They cover the period between 1853and 1886 and constitute the most significant sustained record of any Impressionist artist. The show includestwo sketchbooks: one from early in Degas’ career, during his first trip to Italy, the other datable to theheight of his fame in Paris. The early sketchbook contains diligent student work, such as sketches of antiquestatuary and copies of Renaissance frescoes and paintings. The subjects range from the whimsical to thethoughtful, with quick portraits of dinner guests, sketches of dancers,and scenes from a Turkish bath in the later notebook.

Also on view from Degas’ early years in Italy are Self-Portrait and Detailsof Hand and Eye (ca. 1856) and Self-Portrait (ca. 1856). These two studiesin black chalk were private exercises in proficiency and discipline andremained in portfolios in the artist’s studio until after his death. Anotherwork, Self-Portrait in a Brown Vest (1856), a more tentative explorationin oil on paper, reveals Degas’ continued use of himself as subject as hecame to grasp the rudiments of portraiture.

Degas’ much-heralded explorations of dancers—in rehearsal, on stage, and at rest—began in the 1870s andintensified during the ensuing decades. This period also marked the beginning of his success as an artist. Oneof Degas’ principal concerns as a draftsman was analyzing the movements and gestures of the female body.On view are several drawings featuring dancers, including Three Studies of a Dancer (ca. 1880), easilyrecognizable as the study for the celebrated wax sculpture Little Dancer, Fourteen Years Old, depicting theyoung dancer Marie van Goethem. In this large sheet, the artist studied her from three different angles,attempting to understand the figure in the round in preparation for sculpting it.

Later in his career, Degas experimented with mixing drawing media andprintmaking techniques as seen in Emilie Bécat at the Café desAmbassadeurs. He began the drawing in 1885 using an impression fromhis 1877–78 lithograph of a concert at Café des Ambassadeurs, which heextended along the bottom and right edges, and drew over in densestrokes of pastel. Significantly altering the composition of the print, headded the three female spectators in the foreground. The women’s darksilhouettes, in shades of blue and ochre, are contrasted against the brightpink dress of Emilie Bécat. Degas used the range of pastels to capture theeffects of various light sources in this nocturnal scene and suggests thedifference between the mundane and the magical world of the theater.