Discover Degas & Miss La La

The extraordinary story behind Degas’s groundbreaking painting of the African-American circus performer Miss La La.

Edgar Degas’s Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando (1879) is one of only two paintings by the artist representing people of colour. Miss La La, born Anna Albertine Olga Brown to a white Prussian mother and African-American father, was a renowned performer of extraordinary daring in fin-de-siècle Paris.

Exploring the fascinating story behind Degas’s painting, this is the first in-depth study to focus on the sitter’s identity, presenting new research on her life and career, as well as unpublished photographic material tracing her tour across Europe. The book also analyses the genesis of Degas’s work, from his rapid sketches completed on the spot to his more elaborate preparatory drawings and pastels.

The son of a Creole mother from New Orleans, Degas travelled to Louisiana in 1872-73, which was to have a lasting impact on his art. This book examines the artist’s complex attitudes to ethnicity in relation to his own family background, and the representation of multiracial people in late nineteenth-century France.

Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press

Exhibition Schedule:

National Gallery, London
(June 6-September 1, 2024)

Anne Robbins is Curator of Painting at Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Chiara Di Stefano is Associate Curator of Post-1800 Paintings at The National Gallery, London. Laurie Fierstein is an independent scholar based in New York. Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Arts and Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley. Denise Murrell is Associate Curator of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Isolde Pludermacher is Curator of Painting at Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Christopher Riopelle is Neil Westreich Curator of Post-1800 Paintings at The National Gallery, London.