Degas at the Races
National Gallery of Art, Washington
April 12 - July 12, 1998
Degas at the Races is the first museum exhibition ever devoted to Edgar Degas' lifelong fascination with the theme of the horse and the racetrack, which inspired many of his most striking and innovative works. A remarkable ensemble of more than 120 works, including 40 paintings and pastels, 60 drawings, and 20 works of sculpture, show the full range of Degas' art influenced by the equine form. The National Gallery of Art is the sole venue for the exhibition, which is on view in the West Building.
While the other impressionists saw the racetrack primarily as a distinctly modern form of entertainment, for Degas it was much more: he loved the social spectacle and the excitement of the races, and was intrigued by the controlled nervous tension of the thoroughbred horses in the same way he was fascinated by the lithe agility and discipline of ballet dancers.
"It is singularly appropriate that we celebrate Degas' horses and riders at the National Gallery. This unique exhibition presents master paintings and sculpture in the Gallery's founding collections and twenty loans from Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, as well as generous loans from others," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art.
Paintings
Major paintings are being loaned by museums and private collections worldwide, including the Musée d'Orsay, Paris; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and the Hiroshima Museum of Art, Japan, among others. The entire range of Degas' equestrian subjects will be included, from his earliest history paintings and copies after the Old Masters to his last elaborate pastels. One of the highlights will be Degas' great masterpiece, Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey (1866, reworked 1880-1881 and c. 1897) from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. Degas first exhibited the painting in the Paris Salon of 1866 and kept it in his possession until his death. Since then the painting has been rarely exhibited. This will be the first time in more than thirty years that it will be seen in public, and for the first time ever with a group of related drawings and paintings, including a dramatic late variation of the subject, The Fallen Jockey (c. 1896-1898) from the Kunstmuseum, Basel.
Also on view is the well-known, beautiful pair of paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: The Carriage Leaving the Races in the Countryside (Carriage at the Races) (1869-1872) and Racehorses at Longchamp (1871; reworked in 1874).
Drawings
One of the most prolific draftsman of the 19th century, Degas worked in virtually every graphic medium throughout his career. Often he used these drawings over long periods of time as preparatory studies for multiple paintings and sculpture. The drawings on view range from very fine early ones, such as At the Races (c. 1865) from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, to later dynamic, energetic works, such as Horse Galloping (1885-1890) and two Studies of Horses (1885-1890) from the Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo.
Sculpture, Waxes, and Bronze Casts
Another major highlight will be the important series of sixteen waxes of horses and riders being loaned by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. Artists' waxes are normally destroyed during the casting process, but those made by Degas were discovered intact in 1955. Rarely seen by the public, these fragile waxes will be exhibited for the first time alongside three master bronze casts made posthumously: Horse Standing (late 1860s/early 1870s), Horse Galloping on Right Foot and Jockey (1890s), and Rearing Horse, 1880s, from the Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena, California.
The exhibition has been organized by the noted Degas scholar Jean Sutherland Boggs, guest curator; Philip Conisbee, curator of French paintings, National Gallery of Art; and Kimberly Jones, assistant curator of French paintings, National Gallery of Art.
Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue with essays by Jean Sutherland Boggs on Degas and his depiction of the horse in painting and sculpture. The catalogue will also include an essay by Shelley Sturman and Daphne Barbour, object conservators, National Gallery of Art, on Degas' technique in the making of his wax sculpture as well as their casting into bronze, and an essay by Kimberly Jones, on the history of horse racing in nineteenth-century France. The catalogue is being published by the National Gallery of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London.
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
