Mlle Fiocre dans le ballet La Source (Mademoiselle Fiocre in the ballet La Source)

Edgar Degas prints bring the rehearsal rooms, racetracks and cafés of 19th-century Paris into your home. A founding member of the Impressionist group, Degas spent his career watching people at work, from ballet dancers stretching at the barre to milliners and laundresses. Our collection gathers his paintings, pastels and drawings as art prints, with ballet scenes, jockeys, portraits, bathers and quiet coastal views to choose from.

About Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas was born in Paris on 19 July 1834 into a moderately wealthy family. He began studying law in 1853 but soon turned to art, copying the old masters at the Louvre. In 1855 he met Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and entered the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied drawing with Louis Lamothe, a former pupil of Ingres.

From 1856 he spent about three years in Italy, studying the art of Naples, Rome and Florence. Back in Paris he first aimed to be a history painter, but after meeting Édouard Manet in 1864 he turned to scenes of modern life. In 1872 and 1873 he stayed with family in New Orleans, where he painted A Cotton Office in New Orleans.

Degas helped organize the eight Impressionist exhibitions held between 1874 and 1886 and showed work in all but one. Even so, he preferred to call himself a realist, and he did not paint outdoors. He invited the American painter Mary Cassatt to exhibit with the group, and the two became close friends.

His eyesight troubled him from the time of the Franco-Prussian War, when he served in the National Guard, and it declined further in later life. He stopped working around 1912 and died in Paris in September 1917, nearly blind.

Style and Subjects

More than half of Degas's works show dancers, usually not in performance but in rehearsal, waiting, stretching or tying their slippers. He returned again and again to racehorses and jockeys, women bathing and drying their hair, milliners, laundresses and singers in Parisian cafés. He worked in oil, pastel, etching, monotype and sculpture, and his pastels are among his best-loved works.

Look for his unusual viewpoints. Degas often looks down on a scene from above or crops figures at the edge of the picture, an approach associated with photography, which he also practiced, and with the Japanese prints he collected.

Famous Works

• The Bellelli Family (begun 1858), Musée d'Orsay, Paris. A large family portrait painted early in his career, before he turned to modern Paris.
• The Orchestra at the Opera (c. 1870), Musée d'Orsay, Paris. The musicians in the pit fill the canvas while the dancers on stage are cut off at the top.
• A Cotton Office in New Orleans (1873), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau. Painted during his stay in Louisiana, it was the only work a museum bought during his lifetime.
• The Dance Class (1874), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A ballet master leans on his cane as young dancers in white tutus wait their turn in a pale green studio.
• The Ballet Class (1870s), Musée d'Orsay, Paris. The Met calls this and The Dance Class Degas's most ambitious paintings of the dance.
• L'Absinthe (1875–76), Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Two figures sit side by side in a café, a scene critics disliked when it was first shown in 1876.
• The Tub (1886), Musée d'Orsay, Paris. A pastel of a woman crouching to wash, seen from above, one of his late bather scenes.

Decorating with Degas Prints

Degas's ballet scenes, with their soft whites, pale blues and greens and touches of pink, sit well in bedrooms, dressing rooms and calm living rooms. The Dance Class or one of his pastel dancers works as a single centerpiece, while a group of his quick dancer studies makes a light, airy gallery wall in a hallway or above a dresser.

For a study, library or dining room, try his deeper-toned work: The Orchestra at the Opera with its black suits and warm wood, or his racehorse and jockey scenes. His bather pastels suit a bathroom or dressing area, and his portraits and milliner scenes suit a reading corner.

FAQ

What art movement was Edgar Degas part of?

Degas is counted among the founders of Impressionism and helped organize the group's eight exhibitions between 1874 and 1886. He preferred to call himself a realist, though, and worked in the studio rather than outdoors.

What is Edgar Degas's most famous painting?

His ballet scenes are his best-known works, especially The Dance Class (1874) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Ballet Class at the Musée d'Orsay.

Where can I see Degas's original works?

The Musée d'Orsay in Paris holds many of his major pieces, including The Bellelli Family, The Orchestra at the Opera, L'Absinthe and The Tub. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has The Dance Class and a bronze cast of Little Dancer Aged Fourteen.

How can you recognize a Degas?

Look for dancers, racehorses or women bathing, seen from an unusual angle, often from above, with figures cut off by the edge of the picture.

Why did Degas paint so many ballet dancers?

Dancers make up more than half of his works. He was drawn to the Paris Opera's rehearsal rooms and backstage spaces, where he could study bodies in movement and the ordinary moments between performances.

Related Artists

• Mary Cassatt: American painter Degas invited to exhibit with the Impressionists; a close friend
• Édouard Manet: met Degas in 1864 and steered him toward scenes of modern life
• Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres: the painter Degas met as a young student, whose drawing shaped his early work
• Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: painter of Paris nightlife and perhaps Degas's greatest admirer