Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas lived from 1834 to 1917. He was a great painter of Impressionism, yet differed from most other Impressionists because he detested painting outside. "Art is not a sport" he once said. [1] He loved to paint ballerinas and horse racing. He is also known for his "slice of life" paintings of working class people. Some of his most well known paintings are "The Glass of Absinthe" and "Prima Ballerina".
In 1862, Degas meets Edouard Manet in the Louvre while copying Diego Velázquez's painting The Infanta Margarita; later at the Café Guerbois located at 11 grade rue des Batignolles (today 9 avenue de Clichy), he gathers with other avant-garde artists such as Edouard Manet, Paul Cezanne, Henri Fantin-Latour, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Jean-Frédéric Bazille, and Camille Pissarro. [1] He and his contemporaries, known as the Impressionists, organized independent exhibitions in which they showed their controversial work.
Degas amassed a collection of art so vast and of such substance that he considered establishing his own private museum to house it. [2]
Gallery
"Breaking-In"
"Dance Class"
"Woman at Her Toilette"
"Aux Ambassadeurs"
"Place de la Concorde"
(detail)
Count Lepic and His Daughters; Theft from E.G. Bührle Collection.