Edgar Degas's Birthday
Next: July 19, 2027
The painter of dancers.
The story
Where it comes from
Edgar Degas was born in Paris on 19 July 1834, and this Story marks his birthday. The son of a wealthy banking family, he copied Italian Renaissance paintings at the Louvre, trained in the academic style and became a skilled draughtsman. In the 1860s he turned to modern Parisian life: cafés, theatres, laundresses, the races and, above all, the ballet dancers of the Paris Opéra, caught in rehearsal rooms and waiting in the wings. A leading figure among the Impressionists, he worked in oil, pastel, print and sculpture, often seeing his subjects from unusual angles.
How it's celebrated
There is no formal observance. His paintings, pastels and sculptures hang in museums around the world, among them the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and many can be explored online. It is a good day to look closely at one of his dancers, or to try sketching someone in the middle of a movement.
Did you know
- Degas was among the earliest collectors of Japanese art in France, and from ukiyo-e prints he borrowed asymmetrical compositions and bold cropping rather than kimonos and props.
- His Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, shown in 1881, was the only sculpture he ever exhibited; she is modelled in wax, with real hair, a silk ribbon and a fabric tutu.
- After he died in 1917, more than 150 sculptures, mostly in wax, were found in his studio.
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