Edgar Degas in Switzerland

With Edgar Degas’ late work, the Fondation Beyeler will be holding Switzerland’s first exhibition in twenty years of one of France’s most famous late 19th century painters. It will also be the first exhibition exclusively devoted to Edgar Degas’ rich and complex late work (from around 1886 to 1912), the culmination of a highly productive career spanning more than six decades.

Degas’ late work represents the ultimate artistic achievement of a bold precursor of modern art, which he significantly influenced together with younger friends and colleagues like Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Although Edgar Degas’ art enjoys great popularity, Degas exhibitions are generally limited to his Impressionist period (around 1870 to 1885) or to individual aspects of his work.
 
Two Degas pastels in the permanent collection of the Fondation Beyeler provide the point of departure for the exhibition’s conception: Breakfast after the Bath (the Bath), around 1895 to 1898, and Three Dancers (Blue Tutus, Red Bodices), around 1903, are masterpieces that clearly demonstrate the radicalism and modernity of Degas’ late work.
 
This major exhibition, which will feature over 150 works, will include all the principal motifs and series that are characteristic of Degas’ late work: famous representations of dancers and female nudes, jockeys and racehorses, landscapes and portraits. It will encompass all the techniques with which Degas worked: painting, pastel, drawing, prints, sculpture and photography.

Dates: from September 30 to January 27.
Location: The Fondation Beyeler. Baselstrasse 101 CH-4125 Riehen/Basel. Switzerland.
Opening hours: from Thursday to Tuesday from 10am to 6pm. Wednesdays from 10am to 8pm.