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Creator:
Walter Richard Sickert, 1860–1942
Title:
The Trapeze
Date:
ca. 1920
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
24 1/2 x 32 inches (62.2 x 81.3 cm), Frame: 33 × 40 7/8 × 4 inches (83.8 × 103.8 × 10.2 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Signed in blue paint, lower right: "Sickert"

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Copyright Undetermined
Accession Number:
B1981.25.568
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:
B1981.25.568FR
Subject Terms:
brushstrokes | circus (performance) | performance | performer | tent | trapeze | woman
Access:
Not on view
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:65
Export:
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IIIF Manifest:
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The young Walter Sickert worked in James McNeill Whistler’s studio, even couriering Whistler’s paintings to France for exhibition in the Paris salons. In 1883, Sickert carried a letter from Whistler to Edgar Degas, who befriended the young painter. Degas’s advice and example would have a lifelong impact on Sickert. Degas encouraged Sickert to paint in places of popular entertainment, such as music halls, circuses, and at the ballet, and his influence is apparent in this daring depiction of a trapeze artist performing at the Cirque Rancy in Dieppe. Degas died in 1917, raising the possibility that this was intended as an homage, evoking Degas’s own exploration of the theme in his earlier paintings of the trapeze artist Miss La La in the Cirque Fernando.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2020


The young Walter Sickert worked in James McNeill Whistler’s studio, even couriering Whistler’s paintings to France for exhibition in the Paris salons. In 1883, Sickert carried a letter from Whistler to Edgar Degas, who befriended the young painter. Degas’s advice and example would have a lifelong impact on Sickert. Degas encouraged Sickert to paint in places of popular entertainment, such as music halls, circuses, and at the ballet, and his influence is apparent in this daring depiction of a trapeze artist performing at the Cirque Rancy in Dieppe. Degas died in 1917, raising the possibility that this was intended as an homage, evoking Degas’s own exploration of the theme in his earlier paintings of the trapeze artist Miss La La in the Cirque Fernando.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016

Figuring Women - The Female in Modern British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-03-28 - 2008-06-08) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Edgar Degas - Six Friends at Dieppe (Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 2005-09-16 - 2006-01-15) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Revisiting Traditions [BAC 20th century painting & sculpture] (Yale Center for British Art, 2002-04-30 - 2005-05-18) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Bloomsbury Contemporaries (Yale Center for British Art, 2000-05-20 - 2000-09-03) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

20th Century Paintings and Sculpture (Yale Center for British Art, 2000-01-27 - 2000-04-30) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 202-203, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Matthew Hargraves, "Yale Center for British Art joins Art UK", ArtUK, 24 June 2019, https://artuk.org/discover/stories/yale-center-for-british-art-joins-art-uk [Website]

Adrienne Wong, Figuring women : the female in modern British art., , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2008, pp. 14-15, V 1925 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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