Edgar Degas

Though he rejected the label, Edgar Degas significantly contributed to Impressionism with his expressive paintings of modern Paris—its ballet studios, in particular. The artist rendered the city’s theaters, cafés, and dancers in soft, atmospheric compositions. Degas’s subject matter distinguished him from his Impressionist counterparts: He favored dynamic group scenes and highly poised portraits over the more pastoral, plein air style favored by artists like Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro. Degas also made pastels, prints, sculpture, and photographs (a radical new medium at the time). He exhibited widely in Paris throughout his career, participating in numerous Impressionist exhibitions in the city. His work belongs in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d’Orsay, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Phillips Collection, the Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery, London, and many more. In 2008, Degas’s Danseuse au repos (ca. 1879) sold for a record-breaking $37 million.