Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) was born in Paris, the son of a banker, and in 1855 entered the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied drawing with Louis Lamothe in the manner of Ingres, whom he revered. He then spent three years in Italy copying Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian, and began his career as a history painter before turning, in his early thirties, to contemporary life. He helped organise the Impressionist exhibitions of 1874 to 1886 and showed in all but one, though he disliked the label and preferred to be called a realist; unlike Monet and the landscape painters, he did not paint outdoors. More than half of his works depict dancers, often backstage or in rehearsal, and from the later 1870s he was as much a master of pastel as of oil. His wax Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, shown in 1881, was the only sculpture he exhibited in his lifetime. Here: The Dance Class.