Edgar Degas' "Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando" is "one of the wilder paintings in the National Gallery's collection", said Laura Freeman in The Times. Painted in 1879, it depicts the celebrated circus performer of its title "hanging on by her teeth" from a dangling rope, viewed from a "crick-your-neck perspective" that heightens the sense of jeopardy. Yet famous as the painting is, Miss La La herself has long since passed into obscurity.
Born Anna Olga Albertina Brown to a white mother and an African-American father in Prussia, she gained fame as an acrobat in 1870s Paris, performing "death-defying stunts from a flying trapeze". This small but "scene-stealing" free show at the National Gallery attempts to show this fascinating figure "in the round", exploring her life and the particular circumstances that led Degas to portray her. His painting is displayed alongside preparatory sketches, archive material, photos and posters, resulting in a "top-notch" exhibition "put together with great showmanship".
Degas' "breathtaking" painting gives the impression that it was created with total spontaneity, said Laura Cumming in the The Observer. Indeed, it's as though the artist is up there with her, "hanging mid-air in the moment". Yet, as we learn here, the composition was painstakingly achieved, the result of months of "sketching at the circus and painting at the studio". Degas even hired an architectural draughtsman to consult about his depiction of the dome of the Cirque Fernando – an auditorium also painted by the likes of Seurat, Picasso and Renoir; some of these works are in this show. But its real star is Olga, as La La was known offstage. One of only two black subjects Degas painted, she is represented here in an "enthralling" display of period photographs. The images document her life from circus stardom to old age, always showing her as "a model of intense professionalism, poise and dignity".
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