The Valencian Institute of Modern Art Presents The Complete & Exquisite Collection of Degas’ Sculptures

Written by Donald Simmonds Saturday, 17 December 2011 22:20

Valencia, Spain - This exhibition presents the complete sculptures of the French Impressionist master, Edgar Degas (1834-1917).  While most museum visitors are familiar with the artist's paintings and drawings, many have never been exposed to these magnificent bronze sculptures now on display.  They encompass the artist's iconic themes: dancers in motion, dancers at rest, seated figures, portraits, horses in motion and horses at rest. Degas considered his sculptures to be personal intimate objects which he created for his own pleasure.  History records that only a handful of the artist's closest friends were even aware of the extraordinary number of sculptures Degas had created.  The exhibition will on view from March 3 to April 17, 2011 at the IVAM, Valencian Institute of Modern Art (Institut Valencià d'Art Modern in Catalan).

This treasure only becomes known after Degas' death.  His heirs found a large number of his sculptural objects scattered around his home and studio.  Most of the sculptures were made in wax mixed with clay, and the heirs decided that 74 must be cast in bronze to preserve the images.  It was a wise decision.  Had they not cast in bronze, this major body of work would have remained unknown forever. It is a celebration of the artist's creative genius, and presents for the first time in Spain, the complete sculptures of Edgar Degas.   Degas began to paint early in his life. By eighteen, he had turned a room in his home into an artist's studio, and in 1853 he registered as a copyist in the Louvre. His father, however, expected him to go to law school. Degas duly registered at the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris in November 1853, but made little effort at his studies there. In 1855, Degas met Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, whom he revered, and whose advice he never forgot: "Draw lines, young man, and still more lines, both from life and from memory, and you will become a good artist." In April of that same year, Degas received admission to the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied drawing with Louis Lamothe, under whose guidance he flourished, following the style of Ingres.   Although he is known to have been working in pastel as late as the end of 1907, and is believed to have continued making sculpture as late as 1910, he apparently ceased working in 1912, when the impending demolition of his longtime residence on the rue Victor Massé forced a wrenching move to quarters on the boulevard de Clichy. He never married and spent the last years of his life, nearly blind, restlessly wandering the streets of Paris before dying in 1917.




The IVAM, Valencian Institute of Modern Art (Institut Valencià d'Art Modern in Catalan) was the first center of modern art created in Spain, opening in 1989. Nowadays it's the most important center of modern art in the city of Valencia and one of the most important institutions for modern art in Spain. The newly built construction was inaugurated in 1989 and the original design was made by the Valencian architects Emilio Giménez and Carlos Salvadores; it was remodelled in 2000 by Emilio Giménez and Julián Esteban. Its floor space is 18,200 m2, and it has eight galleries that house both permanent and temporary exhibitions. The museum has two sections: the Centre Julio González, a building of new construction which was inaugurated in 1989 and shows the museum collection together with temporary exhibitions, and the Sala de la Muralla, which has its own separate entrance and shows the remains of the city’s mediaeval ramparts that were built in the second half of the 14th Century.




The IVAM Collection is organized around various thematic focuses in which particular periods of history are singled out. Equal importance is given to different languages and expressions of art to present a view of international and Spanish art angled towards contemporary sensibility. The Collection contains over 10,600 works, illustrating the fundamental forms of expression of twentieth-century art. Thus, this sample shows key aspects regarding the configuration of modernity where the creative artists, looking for innovation and experimentation, reach top works in behalf of the history of art. The thematic areas on which it focuses are Photography and photo-collage,
Installations and new media, Abstraction, Pop Art, Sculpture and Drawings and many thousands of Lithographs on paper.

Internet Reference Sources:

http://www.ivam.es/en/exhibitions/2852-edgar-degas-sculptures

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_Valenci%C3%A0_d%27Art_Modern

---

Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~