Degas in the Norton Simon Museum

Edgar Degas was one of the first artists collected by the industrialist and art collector Norton Simon (1907-1993), as well as one of the last. In the short span of less than thirty years, Simon assembled one of the world's most impressive private art collections, which included more than 100 examples by Degas. In late 1955, a few months after Simon began collecting, he acquired both a bronze sculpture and a pastel by Degas. In May 1983, towards the end of his collecting life, he purchased three Degas pastels at auction.In the three decades in between he bought and sold 131 examples of this extraordinary artist's works. This comprehensive and beautiful book, a collections catalogue of the artworks by Edgar Degas housed in the Norton Simon Museum, offers not only a fascinating insight into the evolution of Simon's extensive and remarkable Degas collection, but a descriptive and informative account of the current collection prepared by Degas scholars exceptionally qualified to write about the artist.The book is organized by the Museum's Senior Curator, Sara Campbell. The thirty paintings and works on paper are catalogued by renowned Degas scholar Richard Kendall. The Norton Simon Degas sculptures – unique foundry models cast directly from Degas' wax originals – are the casts used by the foundry to reproduce all subsequent editions of Degas bronzes. These important bronzes are catalogued by Daphne Barbour and Shelley Sturman, object conservators at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., home to the original waxes. Sara Campbell, curator of the Simon collections for almost forty years, provides a history of Norton Simon's interest in Degas, and an updated inventory of her 1995 catalogue raisonne of Degas' bronze sculptures. The essay on Degas' bronze casting written by Barbour and Sturman presents new technical data discovered with the aid of measuring technology never previously used on Degas bronzes.It is published for the Norton Simon Art Foundation.