For the first time audiences in Australia have the opportunity to see an exhibition devoted to one of the most significant and admired French artists of the nineteenth century, Edgar Degas.

The National Gallery of Australia presents important paintings and sculptures by Degas, as well as drawings, experimental monotypes and photographs. The exhibition draws works from major Degas collections, including Musée d’Orsay, Paris, Musée des Beaux Arts, Pau, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

The exhibition highlights the artist’s favourite themes of modern life in Paris, such as portraits, horseracing, the ballet, laundresses and bathers, and demonstrates his skill as a master painter, sculptor and draughtsman. [gallery media, 2008].