01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, September 18, 2005

BY BILL VAN SICLEN
Journal Arts Writer

PROVIDENCE -- As an artist, Edgar Degas relished turning private moments into public images: the ballet dancers stretching their legs or catching a nap before rehearsals, the jockeys leading their horses to the starting gate, the bathers toweling off after a hot soak.

Degas' own private life was another matter.

A man of independent means (his wealthy family owned banking interests in France and Italy), he had little need to sell or even explain his work to the general public. And unlike Picasso, whose work often reads like a racy tell-all memoir, Degas' prints, paintings and drawings tend to reveal very little about the artist who made them.

As a result, Degas, of all the major Impressionists, remains something of a mystery man.

Now a new exhibition at the RISD Museum, "Edgar Degas: Six Friends at Dieppe," attempts to shed some light on Degas' life as well as his art.

Organized by RISD curator Maureen O'Brien, the show, which opened yesterday, takes its name from a large pastel drawing Degas made in 1885 during a trip to the northern French resort town of Dieppe. Though its original title, if any, is unknown, the drawing has since acquired the name Six Friends at Dieppe -- an accurate enough description, since it depicts six people -- five men and a young boy -- with close personal and professional ties to Degas.

"It really is one of the most fascinating of all Degas' drawings," says O'Brien, who spent nearly two years working on the exhibit. "Not only is it a great piece by one of the greatest artists of the 19th century, but it provides a rare opportunity to explore the social life and milieu that surrounded Degas."

Fortunately, the artist knew some interesting people.

The dark-haired man at the back of the drawing, for example, is Ludovic Halévy, a successful writer whose list of credits include the libretto (co-written with Henri Meilhac) for Georges Bizet's Carmen. Standing in front of Halévy is his son, Daniel, who would later write a biography of Degas.

The gray-haired gent at the bottom right of the drawing is Albert Boulanger-Cavé, a wealthy gadfly and part-time theater censor who was part of Degas' close-knit social circle. Behind him are Henri Gervex (seated) and Jacques-Emile Blanche (standing), both artists who admired Degas' work.

Standing apart from the rest of the group (and easily identified by his bright red hair), is Walter Sickert, a young British artist who had been introduced to Degas through a mutual friend: James McNeill Whistler.

"Once you start looking at all the different backgrounds and personalities, the drawing really gets interesting," O'Brien says. "For example, you have Ludovic Halévy, who's a big deal in the opera world. You have Boulanger-Cavé, who's very well known in the theater world. You have three artists -- Henri Gervex, Jacques-Emile Blanche and Walter Sickert. And of course you have Degas, who's sort of the unseen master of ceremonies."

At the same time, O'Brien notes something unusual about the figures' poses: Though Blanche, Gervex and the rest all knew each other and Degas, none of them is shown interacting or even looking at each other.

"It's as if they're all locked in their own little worlds," she says.

Focus on the art

In addition to Six Friends at Dieppe, the show features nearly 60 other artworks, including paintings by Blanche, Gervex and Sickert, as well as nearly a dozen prints and drawings by Degas himself. Printed wall labels and display cases filled with books, photographs and other archival materials also help trace the relationships between Degas and his "six friends."

Not surprisingly, the show demands a bit more label-reading than some museum-goers may be used to. But O'Brien says that she and the exhibit's designers tried to keep the amount of background information to a minimum.

"Obviously, we needed to provide some background, especially since people like Henri Gervex and Albert Boulanger-Cavé are pretty obscure," she says. "But ultimately, we want people to focus on the art, not the labels."

Then again, visitors who decide skip the history lessons and go straight to the art risk missing some of the show's juicier revelations.

A case in point is a 1953 letter written by Daniel Halévy to then-RISD Museum director John Maxon. In the letter, Halévy recalls sitting for Degas' drawing with has father and the rest of the "six friends" at "the entrance of the fine 'Chalet' which was the summer residence of Jacques-Emile Blanche."

Halévy, who was then nearly 80, goes on to provide short -- and often deliciously waspish -- snapshots of some of his fellow sitters.

He says, for example, that Degas and Boulanger-Cavé didn't always get along, because "between the great man of work who was Degas and the great master of doing nothing who was Cavé, there were incompatibilities." Gervex, meanwhile, "showed real talent" as an artist. Unfortunately, Halévy says, "he was of a common nature and his art came to suffer from this."

In a postscript, Halévy describes a falling-out between Blanche and Degas that directly affected the fate of Six Friends at Dieppe. It seems that after finishing the drawing, Degas left it with Blanche, who kept it for the next 25 years. Then, in 1910, Degas suddenly demanded the drawing back.

The reason: Blanche had exhibited a portrait of the 69-year-old Degas in a London gallery -- an unpardonable sin in Degas' eyes.

As Halévy tells it, Degas, "who had a horror of indiscretions and exhibitions, wrote a very brief note expressing his dissatisfaction and asking for an immediate return of the picture left on deposit in his (Blanche's) house. He gave the note to a messenger ... who was instructed to wait for an answer. The answer was the picture ... and that is why the picture is now at RISD."

(After reading Halévy's letter, you can't help wondering if a better name for the show would have been "Edgar Degas: Six Prima Donnas at Dieppe".)

Smaller sections

To help make sense of all this material, O'Brien has divided the show in a number of smaller sections.

The opening gallery, for example, provides an short overview of Dieppe and the Norman coast. Highlights include a painting of Dieppe by Blanche, as well as a view of the neighboring port city of Honfleur by Claude Monet. A large wall label also reproduces several postcards showing the two seaside villas occupied by Degas, Blanche and the Halévys.

The balance of the show has been installed in the museum's Granoff Galleries, a long, hall-like space that normally houses RISD's collection of European Old Master paintings. It's not the museum's grandest stage, but it works here: rather than feeling cramped, the narrow space actually encourages visitors to linger over the show's smaller artworks and archival materials.

And it pays to linger.

One of the first things you see as you enter the main part of the exhibition is Blanche's 1903 portrait of Degas. Yes, it's the same painting that Blanche exhibited in London in 1910, and that caused Degas to retaliate by demanding the return of Six Friends at Dieppe. Nearly a century later, it's hard to see what all the fuss was about. Though not a great painting, Blanche's Portrait of Edgar Degas is more than passable: the nearly 70-year-old artist looks aged and even a bit frail, but still formidable -- an elder statesman.

A few steps away is the show's centerpiece: Six Friends at Dieppe. Larger than most of Degas' pastels, the drawing looks terrific -- each of the six figures beautifully drawn and whole group as neatly arranged as the notes on a musical score.

Distinct personalities

A selection of works by Sickert, Blanche, Gervex follows. Though not in the same league as Degas, each of the four has a distinctive artistic personality.

Sickert, for example, shared Degas' fascination with theaters and other forms of popular entertainment, although his paintings of British circus performers (The Trapeze) and music halls (The Old Bedford: Cupid in the Gallery) have a darker, even slightly morbid look.

(Still, it seems a bit of a stretch to suggest, as a recent novel did, that Sickert might be the notorious Jack the Ripper!)

Blanche, meanwhile, had a knack for portraits. That much is clear from a pair of small portrait studies of British novelist Virginia Woolf and the American expatriate artist (and Degas gal pal) Mary Cassatt, as well as a larger work, Contemplation, that recalls the portraits of Edouard Manet.

Gervex, too, was an accomplished painter, though his portraits (Madame Blerzy) and city scenes (Le Quai de la Villette) have a slightly more old-fashioned look.

The show ends on a high note -- with a selection of Degas paintings and drawings from the museum's permanent collection. Highlights here include a pair of wonderful pastel drawings of jockeys, a small ballet study and a bronze figure, Grand Arabesque, Second Time, from the mid-1880s.

Overall, it's an impressive effort.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the narrow focus, the show paints a more vivid portrait of Degas than you'll find in most Impressionist exhibits, which have a tendency to devolve into mindless, "Greatest Hits" spectacles. Indeed, combined with the current Degas show at Harvard's Arthur M. Sackler Museum (through Nov. 27), New Englanders have a rare chance to get up close and personal with Impressionism's mystery man.

"Edgar Degas: Six Friends at Dieppe" runs through Jan. 15 at the RISD Museum, 224 Benefit St., Providence. Hours: Tues.-Sun. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Admission: adults $8, seniors $5, students with I.D. $3, ages 5-18 $2, under 5 free. (Note: the museum offers free admission from 5-9 p.m. on Gallery Nights. Admission is also free on Fridays noon-1:30 p.m., Sundays 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and on the last Saturday of each month.)

Phone: (401) 454-6500.