Book competition

This week’s competition prize is Edgar Degas: Drawings and Pastels by Christopher Lloyd, published by Thames & Hudson. Click here for your chance to win.

Edgar Degas was described as ‘the most intelligent, the most demanding, the most merciless draughtsman in the world’ by the poet and critic Paul Valery and today Degas is considered one of the outstanding draughtsman of the late 19th century. His powerful drawings and the pastels, which he himself characterised as ‘orgies of colour’, are some of the most compelling works in Western art.

Drawing was not only the central tenet of Degas’s art but also virtually a daily activity. Through an examination of the artist’s drawings and pastels, Christopher Lloyd examines the development of Degas’s style and outlines the story of his life in the contexts of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

Following a broadly chronological approach, Lloyd discusses the wide range of Degas’s work: the images of ballet dancers (which form over half of the artist’s oeuvre), jockeys, laundresses, milliners and female nudes, as well as the less well-known landscape drawings. With over 200 illustrations that capture the most fleeting of subtleties and shades, this book provides a comprehensive and engaging account of the artist as draughtsman.

For your chance to win simply answer the following question and submit your details here before midday on 26 January.

Q: In which country did Degas live between 1856 and 1859?

For our last competition prize we offered Leonard Rosoman by Tanya Harrod, published by the Royal Academy of Arts (£29.95). The question was:

Q: At which art school in London did Leonard Rosoman teach for more than 20 years?

Answer: The Royal College of Art

Congratulations to the winner, Diana Semionova