NARRATOR:
Edgar Degas's late depictions of the female nude are among his most evocative and radical. Woman Drying Her Hair, painted in the first decade of the twentieth century when the artist’s eyesight was failing, confronts us with an almost violent display of draftsmanship.
At first sight, the woman's anatomy is confounding. She is seated on a bed or divan, her left foot positioned so that it appears just above her right knee. Her right arm is raised, and partially hidden under a large white towel. As she leans forward, we can barely make out her shadowed face.
Contrasting movements and vibrant color create a nervous, dislocating momentum. Layer after layer of dynamic pastel strokes, build a thick, crusty surface almost as dense as an oil painting. Indeed, Woman Drying Her Hair draws attention not to the action depicted, but to the artifice of its production.
The woman remains anonymous, but contemporary sources tell us that she was a professional model who sat for Degas at his cluttered studio in the rue Victor Massé in Paris. There, he arranged and rearranged props and models to realize his unique vision; an artist, director and producer all in one.
Woman Drying Her Hair
c. 1900-1908
Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
On View
Degas’s late pastels of bathers drying and combing their hair are among the most sensuous—and the most bewilderingly abstract—works he ever produced. After half a century’s assiduous study (making copies of Renaissance and modern masters in his youth, producing countless life drawings of professional models, ballet dancers, and prostitutes in his maturity), Degas had come to know the contours of the nude by heart. Here those contours are engulfed by a thicket of terse, scribbling strokes, layer after layer of color, applied with an electric swiftness. These strokes lend vitality to the body they describe but also insist on the artist’s own dynamic process and on the flatness of the picture’s surface.
Details
- Artist Name: Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
- Title: Woman Drying Her Hair
- Date: c. 1900-1908
- Medium: Pastel on paper
- Dimensions: 28 x 24-1/2 in. (71.1 x 62.2 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1969.06.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
Edgar Degas Estate, Paris (sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 12 December 1918, lot 134, ill., as “Femme s’essuyant les cheveux,” for Fr 3,900 to);
[Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock no. 11370, sold 8 March 1958 to];
René Beck.
[?Charles Durand-Ruel, Paris, to];
[Sam Salz, New York, to];
[Reid & Lefevre, Ltd., London, offered by 9 December 1968, and subsequently sold 25 January 1969 to];
Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art, Los Angeles (sale, New York, Christie's, 19 May 1982, lot 15, ill., as Femme s’essuyant les cheveux, unsold);
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
[Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock no. 11370, sold 8 March 1958 to];
René Beck.
[?Charles Durand-Ruel, Paris, to];
[Sam Salz, New York, to];
[Reid & Lefevre, Ltd., London, offered by 9 December 1968, and subsequently sold 25 January 1969 to];
Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art, Los Angeles (sale, New York, Christie's, 19 May 1982, lot 15, ill., as Femme s’essuyant les cheveux, unsold);
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Three Centuries of French Art: Selections from The Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art and the Norton Simon Foundation
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1974-10-19 to 1976-06-15
- Thomson, Richard, Degas: The Nudes, p. 211, 218
- Dumas, Ann, and others, Degas e gli italiani a Parigi,fig. 82 pp. 162-163
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum,1989, p. 151
- Museum of Art and History, Geneva, Dessins fraçais, collections du Musée d'art et d'histoire de Genève,2004, fig. 1 pp. 136-137
- Norton Simon Museum, Selected Paintings at the Norton Simon Museum,1980, p. 111
- Lemoisne, Paul-André, Degas et son oeuvre,no. 1454
- Marmor, Michael F. and James G. Ravin, The Artist's Eyes: Vision and the History of Art,2009, fig. 38.4c p. 205
- Apollo, p. xliii
- Russoli, Franco; and Fiorella Minervino, L'opera completa di Degas,under no. 1053 p. 133
- Campbell, Sara et al., Degas in the Norton Simon Museum,2009, Fig. 30 pp. 45, 218
- The Open University, Art of the Avant-Gardes,2004, Plate 4.11 pp. 119-122
- Degas by Himself: Drawings, prints, paintings, writings, p. 280
- Carmen Fernández Jacob, La Patalogía Ocular en la Pintura a Través de la Clínica Oftalmológica,2017, Fig. 25, Fig. 28 pp. 115-117
- Marmor, Michael, Degas by His Own Eyes,fig. 32 p. 55
- Maheux, Anne, Degas Pastels,figs. 14, 14a
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best,2010, cat. 570 p. 313
- Kendall, Richard, Edgar Degas: Defining the Modernist Edge,fig. 18 p.62
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