Short answers, pulled from the story.
Edgar Degas was a French artist born in Paris on the 19th of July 1834, known for pastel drawings, oil paintings, bronze sculptures, prints, and monotypes. More than half of his works depict dancers, and he is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, though he preferred to call himself a realist.
Degas began painting ballet subjects from 1870 partly because they sold well and provided needed income after his brother Rene's business debts left the family bankrupt. His first major work to feature a dancer, Mlle. Fiocre in the Ballet La Source, appeared at the Salon of 1868.
Degas invited Mary Cassatt to exhibit in the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877, having admired her portrait Ida from the 1874 Salon. They collaborated most closely in the fall and winter of 1879-80 on a planned prints journal, which collapsed in April 1880 when Degas abruptly withdrew his support.
The only sculpture Degas publicly exhibited during his lifetime was The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, shown at the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881. It was a nearly life-size wax figure of model Marie van Goethem, dressed in a cloth tutu with real hair, and drew strong reactions from critics who found its realism extraordinary.
After Degas died in September 1917, his heirs found 150 wax sculptures in his studio, many in disrepair. Foundry owner Adrien Hebrard concluded that 74 could be cast in bronze, and the Hebrard Foundry produced those casts from 1919 until 1936.
Degas rejected the label Impressionist and preferred to be called a realist. He mocked colleagues like Monet for painting outdoors and explained his own method as "the result of reflection and of the study of the great masters." He also pushed to include non-Impressionist artists in the group's exhibitions, contributing to the movement's disbanding in 1886.