Throughout art history Edgar Degas has been categorised as a nationalist, misogynist and experimental artist. But, is this an accurate portrayal? Considering Degas’s life and work from the streets of Paris to the walls of the salon – who was Degas really?

The prevailing view in art historical circles is that Degas was a classicist painter. However, Degas’s complex and liberatory relationship with the museum and Salon system suggests that Degas was far from dedicated to the clarity, precision and sense of proportion associated with ancient art. Take a closer look at the variety of irregular formal canons Degas embraced in order to self-fashion himself as a Northern European neo-baroque painter of small portraits and genre scenes.

In a series of three lectures, Dr Roberta Crisci-Richardson, author of Mapping Degas, challenges popular notions of Degas by considering his life and work in his context of nineteenth century France.

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