Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas was a French artist usually grouped with the Impressionists, though he preferred to call himself a realist. Born in Paris in 1834 to a well-off family, he trained in classical drawing and never lost his love of line, even as he took up modern subjects. He is best known for his images of ballet dancers, caught not in graceful poses but stretching, adjusting slippers, or waiting in the wings.

He was fascinated by movement and by unusual, snapshot-like viewpoints, influenced partly by photography and Japanese prints. Besides dancers he painted racehorses, laundresses, and women bathing, always with a sharp, slightly detached eye. As his sight failed he turned more to pastel and sculpture, and his wax figures of dancers and horses are now treasured alongside his paintings.