Degas To Denver: Art Museum Will Be Only Place In U.S. To See New Show

Degas to Denver is not a trade expected to be announced Thursday at the NFL Draft. It is big news in the world of art. The Denver museum announced Wednesday that they will be the only place in the United States for people to see Degas: A Passion for Perfection - an exhibition that will debut at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.

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The show - which will run from February 11, 2018 through May 20, 2018 - will feature more than 100 works created by Edgar Degas from 1855 to 1906 in a variety of media including paintings, drawings, pastels, etchings, and bronze sculptures.

"Degas was the quintessential independent artist, and this exhibition will give visitors a more intimate look into his creative process as well as his public and private life," said Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the DAM.

"Several moments within the exhibition will encourage close, mindful looking, providing the opportunity for visitors to savor the range of media, subject matter and techniques that defined Degas as an innovator."

The museum says that the presentation of Degas: A Passion for Perfection also will dive deeper into Degas’ obsession with repetition of subjects throughout his entire artistic journey. Visitors will see his transformation from a portraitist and painter of historical subjects to one interested in the contemporary life of late 19th century Paris.

By experimenting constantly throughout his career he developed techniques that allowed him to capture modern subject matter through sharp and precise lighting, such as café concerts, street scenes with new electric lighting, sporting events and theatrical settings. He considered his work in all media a constant continuum.

"Degas was determined to succeed on his own terms by blurring the boundaries of traditional media and pushing them to extremes,” said Timothy Standring, the Gates Family Foundation Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the DAM who is the local curator for the exhibition.

"He excelled both as a colorist and a draughtsman, and met the challenges of new subject matter with experimental techniques. Degas invented an oil medium known as l’essence, in which the oils in oil pigment are leached out and then mixed together with paint thinner, and took his mark-making to new extremes by printing sticky ink drawings, known as monotypes."

Image: Edgar Degas, Dance Examination (Examen de Danse), 1880. Pastel on paper; 24-1/2 x 18 in. Denver Art Museum; anonymous gift. 1941.6