Edgar Degas, Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, 1879. The National Gallery, London.
Join Anne Robbins, Curator of Paintings at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, and lead curator of Discover Degas and Miss La La for a special introduction to the National Gallery’s groundbreaking new exhibition.
Edgar Degas’s (1834-1917) landmark painting of 1879 Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando records an extraordinary moment and features a remarkable figure – the circus artist Miss La La, or Anna Albertine Olga Brown (1858‒1945), born in Szczecin, Prussia (now Poland) to a European mother and an African-American father. Degas makes her the subject of one of his most original and arresting paintings, capturing her in possibly one of her most striking and perilous acts – when, suspended from a rope held between her teeth by a leather mouthpiece, she spirals up towards the ceiling of the Cirque Fernando.
In this talk, Anne will share new discoveries about Miss La La herself, about Degas’s working process and his complex approach to his model. Along with previously untraced drawings of her by Degas and entirely unpublished photographic portraits, the way we look at this painting and its extraordinary subject will be changed forever.
The exhibition Discover Degas and Miss La La is at the National Gallery, London, from 6 June to 1 September 2024. The catalogue for this exhibition has been supported with an ARTscapades grant
Proceeds from ARTscapades ticket sales benefit museums, galleries and other arts-based organisations and projects.
This is an online event hosted on Zoom which can be watched live, or on-demand for one month afterwards. You will receive your link to access the event in your email confirmation and the on-demand link after the event ends.