Dialogues with Degas

Dialogues with Degas demonstrates the ongoing relevance of Edgar Degas to 20th- and 21st-century ideas and art practices. The first in-depth examination of this major artist's impact on contemporary art, this book explores how contemporary practitioners have used Degas's creativity as a springboard to engage imaginatively and critically with themes of colonialism, gender, race and class. Through close analyses of paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures, Brown shows how Degas's technical and compositional experiments have been extended or challenged in innovative ways by contemporary artists including: Frank Auerbach, Cecily Brown, Xinyi Cheng, Ryan Gander, Maggi Hambling, Damien Hirst, Howard Hodgkin, Chantal Joffe, Leon Kossoff, R.B. Kitaj, Juan Muñoz, Paula Rego, Jenny Saville, Yinka Shonibare, Cy Twombly and Rebecca Warren. Eschewing familiar conceptions of influence, the book opens transhistorical dialogues that generate new perspectives on histories of 19th-century art. These encounters also reframe contemporary art practices, prompt innovative ideas about the agency of visual artefacts, and offer a new methodology for writing about art. With such breadth of analysis, the book makes an important contribution to scholarship in Degas studies, contemporary art, reception theory, art history, and fine art.

Kathryn Brown is Reader in Art Histories, Markets and Digital Heritage at Loughborough University, UK. Her books include Women Readers in French Painting 1870-1890 (2012), Matisse's Poets: Critical Performance in the Artist's Book (Bloomsbury, 2017) and Henri Matisse (2021). She is the series editor of Contextualizing Art Markets (Bloomsbury).

Acknowledgements List of Colour Plates List of Figures Introduction Influence and Antagonism Art out of Time Structure and Approach 1. Degas and the School of London R. B. Kitaj and the Anxious Condition of Art Making The Anti-Dreyfusard Master Leon Kossoff and Frank Auerbach Draw Degas 2. Influence as Excess Misogyny Paula Rego's Dog Women Cecily Brown: New Provocations 3. Vitrines, Vacancy, and Immanent Things: Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer Medicine and Moral Judgment: Damien Hirst Entangled Histories: Yinka Shonibare Ryan Gander's Empathetic Storytelling 4. Degas Doubled Rebecca Warren as Twin Juan Muñoz and Miss La La's Legacy 5. Pearl Divers: Prying Loose the Past Maggi Hambling's Monotypes: Queer Phenomenology and the Gaze Chantal Joffe's Bathers: Self and Other Xinyi Cheng: Modern Masculinities 6. The Final Act Jenny Saville: Colour Shock Howard Hodgkin's Hero Conclusion Cy Twombly and Degas's Hat Degas Unbound Notes Bibliography Index