Summer of a collection

Summer of a collection

This summer, the musée des impressionnismes Giverny is offering a new presentation of its collections, allowing the public to discover little-known works: paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs that will offer a dialogue between impressionism and contemporary art.

Impressionism in France

The musée des impressionnismes Giverny is dedicated to studying this major current in art history, from its beginnings to its subsequent legacy. Claude Monet’s Nymphéas avec rameaux de saule evokes Giverny and the famous water-lily pond that the painter created in his garden. Gustave Caillebotte’s spectacular and immersive Parterre de marguerites was recently the subject of an ambitious restoration program in order to return it to its original dimensions.

A few recent acquisitions showcase the figure of Eugène Boudin, and through him the beginnings of Impressionism in Normandy. The artists who were inspired by Monet include Jean Francis Auburtin, who followed in his footsteps on the coasts of Brittany and Normandy, as well as Paul Signac, who was also influenced by his work early on.

Monet also attracted a large number of American admirers and painters, who fell in love with Giverny, forming a veritable artists’ colony. The museum’s collection makes it possible to discover some of them, including John Leslie Breck and Theodore Earl Butler.

Impressionism in the United States

Thanks to its history and location, the musée des impressionnismes Giverny is closely linked to American Impressionist painting, having taken over from the Musée d’Art Américain founded by Daniel J. Terra in 2009.

In the 1880s, many American artists chose to study in France and quickly started to paint in an Impressionist manner. They included Theodore Earl Butler and William Samuel Horton, who both pursued their lives and careers on both sides of the Atlantic and helped to disseminate the Impressionist style in the United States.

The two views of New York by Butler were bequeathed to the museum this year by a generous donor. They echo beautifully Horton’s two versions of the Ritz Tower, on long-term loan to the museum since 2020, thanks to the artist’s granddaughter.

The Nabis

In 1911, Nabi painter Pierre Bonnard bought a house in Vernonnet, not far from Giverny. Now neighbours, Monet and Bonnard visited each other frequently. Acquired in 2019 thanks to a public fundraising campaign marking the museum’s tenth anniversary, La Seine à Vernon is typical of the artist’s Normandy output.

Over the years, several Nabi works joined the collections, following various exhibitions: two works by Maurice Denis, the group’s theoretician, thus entered the collection after the exhibition “Maurice Denis. L’éternel printemps”, in 2012; a set of prints by Ker-Xavier Roussel was acquired in 2020, after the retrospective devoted to the artist in 2019; the lithograph La Naissance d’Annette and the pastel Allée aux Clayes, by Édouard Vuillard evoke the delicate art of the artist, whose interest in Monet et the subject of gardens was revealed in the exhibition “Côté jardin. De Monet à Bonnard”, presented in 2021 at the museum.

Isabelle Chatelin

For an entire year, between April 2019 and April 2020, artist Isabelle Chatelin painted the tip of Saint-Valery-en-Caux, on the Normandy coast. With her oil pastels, she captured, day in and day out, the movements of water and clouds, the hues of the cliffs, the effects of a storm or dazzling sunlight. This set of pastels was recently acquired by the musée des impressionnismes, which continues to reinforce its collections’ openness to contemporary art and the repercussions of the Impressionist movement.

In Giverny, the serial approach inevitably brings to mind Eugène Boudin’s studies of the Normandy skies, as well as the work of Claude Monet, who, in the 1890s, executed various series devoted to haystacks, poplars, the Rouen Cathedral and mornings on the Seine.

Latest acquisitions

In June 2021, American photographer Terri Weifenbach undertook a one-year project devoted to the institution’s garden, which resulted in a book co-published this summer by the museum and Atelier EXB. On the occasion of its publication, the musée des impressionnismes has acquired three of the artist’s prints, thereby bringing Terri Weifenbach’s intimate and poetic vision of Giverny’s secret beauty into its collections. 

Lastly, the exhibition’s final work is a portrait of Mademoiselle Rose Worms (c. 1900) executed by Maurice Boutet de Monvel. Set in a landscape

Opening times

The exhibition open from 14 July to 2 October 2022.

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