Lecture: Degas’s Paintings: Unfinished or Unresolved? The Artist’s Process and the Question of Finish

May 3, 2025
Ann Hoenigswald, Senior Conservator of Paintings Emerita, National Gallery of Art

Edgar Degas was a particularly experimental 19th-century artist. Close technical study of his paintings, graphic work and sculptures reveals his eccentric choice of materials and unconventional manipulation of media. He was known to rework his pictures decades after initially considering them finished, and he frequently approached his artwork as if it were a work in progress. Clues left on the surface occasionally expose these changes, but on occasion only technical imaging can help decipher the embedded layers. Hoenigswald explores these aspects and delves into Degas’s revision process, his use of materials and the ambiguous issue of finish.