Distinguished Collection of Degas Masterworks

Thursday, 04 August 2005 17:35

CAMBRIDGE, MA.-The Harvard University Art Museums will present Degas at Harvard, an exhibition examining Harvard University's distinguished 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 by Degas from the collection of the Fogg Art Museum, together with promised gifts to the Fogg, as well as works from The Houghton Library at Harvard and Harvard's Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C. Organized by the Fogg Art Museum, the exhibition encompasses drawings, paintings, prints, sculpture, and photographs. In 1911, the Fogg was the first museum in the world to mount an exhibition of works by Degas and was the only one to do so during the artist's lifetime. Degas at Harvard brings together for the first time Degas works in various Harvard collections, from very early works created in his student days to masterworks made at the height of his career. The 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. A key figure in the remarkable relationship between the work of Degas and the Fogg, its staff, and students at the University was Paul J. Sachs (1878-1965), former professor of fine arts at Harvard and associate director of the Fogg. The Harvard University Art Museums initiated new research in preparing the exhibition, including extensive conservation and analytical research that allowed curators and conservators to reexamine in careful detail much of the collection. Building upon recent extensive technical analysis of a number of the Fogg's paintings, all of Degas's works on paper in the collection were subjected to a rigorous examination in the museum's Straus Center for Conservation. A highlight of this substantive study was the unframing, for the first time in many years, of one especially fragile drawing, which revealed a section of the drawing hitherto hidden under the mat, providing new insight into the work. The technical research was complemented by significant archival research in order to examine the history of the prized collection of Degas's work at the Fogg. Through this new research and ongoing study, the exhibition underscores the Harvard University Art Museums' commitment to making opportunities available for scholars and visitors to explore and enjoy exceptional works of art. "Edgar Degas was a brilliantly innovative artist and the Harvard collections reveal his constant experimentation with new techniques and bold ideas," said Saywell. "Despite the broad familiarity of his art, the more we study it, the more we realize just how much there is still to discover about Degas's remarkable creative process. In subjecting the works to detailed analysis in our conservation labs, and then presenting the results through exhibition and lectures, we intend to make a lasting contribution to the scholarly consideration of Degas's art." Significant works featured in the exhibition include: The Rehearsal (1873-78), the only work in the current exhibition to also be shown in the pivotal 1911 exhibition. Lent by a private collector for the first show, The Rehearsal came to Harvard in the 1951 bequest of Maurice Wertheim. After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself (1893-98), which will be shown to the public for the first time in 40 years. Due to its extreme fragility-the work is drawn on very thin and brittle tracing paper-the drawing has remained in the care of the Fogg's paper conservation laboratory since the 1960s because techniques for conserving the work have not yet advanced to a point where the work can be handled or presented on a regular basis. Alice Villette (1872), an oil painting purchased by the Fogg in 1925, its first Degas acquisition. Untitled (Self-Portrait in Library) (c. 1895), a gelatin silver print that shows Degas's fascination with portraits and his skill as a photographer. Dancers, Nude Study (1899), a drawing of ballet dancers bathing, combining two of the artist's most famous subjects. Two rare landscape photographs from the 1890s, Untitled (Cape Hornu, near Saint-Valèry-sur-Somme), and Untitled (The Hourdel Road, near Saint-Valèry-sur-Somme), both probably taken in early September 1895, when Degas spent five days in Saint-Valéry.

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