Café Singer
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
53.5 × 41.8 cm (21 1/16 × 16 7/16 in.); Framed: 71.2 × 61 cm (28 × 24 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
84076
Art Historical Context
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas’s *Café Singer* (9) captures a fleeting moment from the lively café-concert culture of late nineteenth-century Paris. As a leading figure of the Impressionist movement, Degas frequently turned his attention to performers and everyday urban scenes, portraying singers, dancers, and musicians with remarkable immediacy. Here, the artist presents a woman in mid-performance, her expressive face and gesture suggesting both the energy of the venue and the demands of her profession. Painted in oil on canvas, the work showcases Degas’s innovative approach to composition. He ...
About the Artist
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas · 1834–1917
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas, born on July 19, 1834, in Paris to a prosperous banking family, was the eldest of five children. His mother, Célestine Musson, a Creole from New Orleans whose father Germain Musson had roots in Haiti, died when Degas was thirteen, leaving his father Augustin and unmarried uncles to guide him. Educated at the elite Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he earned a baccalauréat in...