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Ukrainian dancers (previously known as Russian dancers) is a theme series of pastels by Edgar Degas depicting Ukrainian women performing ethnic dances. These paintings were created during the 1890s and early 1900s, and were probably motivated by Ukrainian dancers performing in Paris at the time. The dancing women came from the Russian Empire, so throughout the 20th century these paintings were attributed as "Russian dancers" in English and French sources, despite vast ethnographic and art historical evidence for the Ukrainian origin of the women.[1]

There were a number of voices calling for changing the misleading "Russian" name, criticizing it as "deliberate or just lazy misinterpretation" of Ukraine.[2] These calls intensified with the beginning of Russian invasion in Ukraine in February 2022. In response London's National Gallery renamed a painting from its collection as "Ukrainian dancers" in April 2022.[3][2]

Pastels

There are at least 18 pastels and sketches of Ukrainian dancers created by Degas, mostly in the second half of the 1890s.

Lisa Bixenstine classifies them as 6 finished pastels, 4 unfinished ones, and 8 sketches.[4]

Painting	Year	Technique	Canvas(cm)	Catalogue	Collection	Reference
	1894	pastel	54 x 34	MS 390	private collection	[5]
	1895	pastel and charcoal	48 x 67	MS 392	private collection	[6]
	1895-1899	tracing paper, pastel, charcoal	62 x 67	MS 383	Nationalmuseum (Stockholm, Sweden)	[7]
	1898	pastel and charcoal	73 x 59	MS 389	private collection	[8]
	1898	Pastel, charcoal and black chalk on paper mounted on cardboard	67 x 57	MS 394	Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, USA)	[9]
	1899	tracing paper, pastel, charcoal	62,2 x 62,9	MS 384	Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, USA)	[10]
	1899	paper, pastel	62,9 x 64,7	MS 385	Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)	[11][12]
	1899	tracing paper, pastel, charcoal	61,9 x 45,7	MS 387	Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)	[13][14]
	1899	pastel	58,4 x 76,2	MS 391	private collection	[15]
	1899	Pastel and charcoal on 5 sheets of paper mounted on cardboard	73 x 59,1	MS 393, MS 1845	National Gallery (London, Great Britain)	[16][17][18]
	1899	tracing paper, pastel, charcoal	59,3 x 38	MS 1533	private collection	[19]
	1900-1905	paper, pastel, charcoal	98,3 x 75,5	MS 1204	private collection	[20]
		paper, charcoal			Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
	с. 1899	paper, pastel, charcoal	63 x 60,8		private collection	[21]
	1900-1905	paper, pastel, charcoal	54 x 71,1		private collection	[22]

See also

• Dance in Ukraine

References

Sources

• Bixenstine, L. R. (1987). Edgar Degas' Russian dancers series (1897-99): their dating, pastel technique, and their context within his late period (1885-1908) (PhD thesis). The Ohio State University.

Literature

• Richard Kendall and Jill DeVonyar. Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement. Exhibition catalog, Royal Academy of Arts. London, 2011, pp. 19, 227, 229–31, 237
• David Bomford et al. in Art in the Making: Degas. Exhibition catalog, National Gallery. London, 2004

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