: August 1 to November 27, the Harvard University Art Museums will
present "Degas at Harvard," an exhibition examining the
university's comprehensive holdings by Edgar Degas, one of the
most important collections of the artist's work in the United
States.
The exhibition will draw together more than 60 works from the
Fogg's own collection, together with promised gifts and
significant works from The Dumbarton Oaks and Research Library
and Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Houghton Library at
Harvard. The exhibition, which is organized by the Fogg Art
Museum, will include paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints and
photographs, and will be on view at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum.
Edgar Degas, "Chanteuse de Café," circa 1878, pastel on canvas,
24¾ by 19¾ inches, Fogg Art Museum.
In 1911, the Fogg was the first museum to mount an exhibition
of works by Degas and was the only museum to do so during the
artist's lifetime. This exhibition explores the range and depth of
Degas's artistic innovation, and Harvard's pivotal role in
fostering understanding and scholarship of his works through the
commitment of its curators, collectors and the generations of
scholars who have worked with the collection at the Fogg.
Among the works featured in the exhibition will be the bronze
sculpture "Little Dancer, Fourteen Years Old," 1880, the pastel
"Chanteuse de Café," circa 1878, "After the Bath, Woman Drying
Herself," 1893--98, which will be shown for the first time in 40
years due to its extreme fragility, and the photograph "United
(Self-Portrait in his Library)," circa 1895, a gelatin silver
print that shows Degas's fascination with portraits and his skill
as a photographer.
Edgar Degas, "Untitled Self Portrait," circa 1895, gelatin
silver print, 4¾ by 6½ inches, collection Fogg Art Museum.
"Degas at Harvard" is curated by Edward Saywell, Charles C.
Cunningham Sr Curatorial Associate in Drawings, and Stephen
Wolohojian, curator, department of paintings, sculpture and
decorative arts. It will be accompanied by a catalog with essays by
Harvard curator Marjorie Benedict Cohn and Jean Sutherland Boggs,
an independent scholar and former pupil of former Fogg director
Paul Sachs, and a Leventritt lecture series involving many of
today's leading Degas scholars.
The Arthur M. Sackler Museum is at 485 Broadway. Hours are Monday
through Saturday, 10 to 5 pm, Sunday 1 to 5 pm. Admission is
$6.50.
For information, 617-495-9400 or artmuseums.Harvard.edu.
