A new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) focuses on Edgar Degas's earlier and rarely seen monotypes, exploring their impact on his later works. The extensive show Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty is the first exhibition in nearly 50 years to examine these innovative pieces, with approximately 120 monotypes and 60 related works, including paintings, drawings, pastels, sketchbooks, and prints, all organized chronologically.
A prominent figure in 19th-century art, the French-born Degas is renowned for his vivid ballet paintings. A printmaker and draftsman, his earlier works reveal his passion for ink and print, which yielded striking results. The monotype process involves drawing in black ink on a metal plate that was then run through a press, typically resulting in a single print. Degas’s mantra of “Make a drawing, begin it again, trace it, begin it again, and retrace it” would find him reworking drawings, often using his nails, creating as many as three separate works of art from one initial effort. “The lines are richly evocative, offering a sense of how Degas looked—black ink to his elbows, staining his suit, dripping onto his shoes—as well as of how he acted: dashing in the summer sun to all manner of print specialists, from publishers to scientists to suppliers, to gather advice,” says Senior Curator Jodi Hauptman in the exhibit’s introduction.
Heads of a Man and Woman, 1877-1880
The medium perfectly served Degas's ability to capture urban life, particularly night scenes like cafés, brothels, ballets, or singers before going on stage. Many of these are smaller-sized works, appropriate for quieter, intimate moments portraying a subject in isolation or reflection.
Mademoiselle Bécat at the Café des Ambassadeurs, 1879-80
Degas made more than 300 monotypes during the mid-1870s, and again in the 1890s. Some of the drawings are visceral, incomplete and rough, with subjects in awkward poses. Degas even dabbled in photography, which can be seen in his 1895 photo of artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir with poet Stephane Mallarmé.
Woman Reading, 1880-1885
After an excursion through the Burgundy region of France in 1890, Degas was inspired to create a series of abstract landscapes. In these oil paintings he sometimes used pastels for emphasis. A selection of this bright work is also on display. The use of oil paint in monotype introduced a new element of unpredicatbility.
Landscape with Rocks, 1892
The exhibition was organized by Jodi Hauptman, Senior Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints; with Karl Buchberg, Senior Conservator; and Heidi Hirschl, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Museum of Modern Art; and Richard Kendall, independent art historian and curator. MoMA is the sole venue for this exhibition.
Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty opened on March 26 and will be on display through July 24. Audio tours and magnifying glasses are available. For more information, visit moma.org.