Collection: Edgar Degas   1834 - 1917 

Born in Paris in 1834, Edgar Degas was a painter, draftsman and sculptor who has been regarded as one of the founding masters of the Impressionist movement (though he often tried to distance himself from the term and was almost as critical of their techniques as the art critics who belittled them). He was most interested in depicting moving subjects in his work, primarily illustrating dancers and racehorses, and in the female form where even still nudes appear to contain a great sense of movement.

Though his work crossed many stylistic boundaries, his involvement with the other major figures of Impressionism and their exhibitions, his dynamic paintings and sketches of everyday life and activities, and his bold colour experiments, served to finally tie him to the Impressionist movement as one of its greatest artists. His paintings, pastels, drawings, and sculptures are on prominent display in many museums and he has influenced several important painters, most notably Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec. He died in 1917.

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