Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature

The Denver Art Museum presents the most comprehensive U.S. exhibition of Monet paintings in more than two decades. The exhibition features 120 paintings, loaned from 80 different collections, spanning Monet’s entire career and will focus on the celebrated French impressionist artist’s enduring relationship with nature and his response to the varied and distinct places in which he worked.

Monet traveled more extensively than any other impressionist artist in search of new motifs. His journeys to varied places including the rugged Normandy coast, the sunny Mediterranean, London, the Netherlands, and Norway inspired artworks that will be featured in the presentation. The exhibition uncovers Monet’s continuous dialogue with nature and its places through a thematic and chronological arrangement, from the first examples of artworks still indebted to the landscape tradition to the revolutionary compositions and series of his late years.

The presentation of Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature explores Monet’s continuous interest in capturing the quickly changing atmospheres, the reflective qualities of water and the effects of light, aspects that increasingly led him to work on multiple canvases at once. Additionally, the exhibition examines the critical shift in Monet’s painting when he began to focus on series of the same subject, including artworks from his series of Haystacks, Poplars, Waterloo Bridge, and Water Lilies.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website

Image: Claude Monet, Path in the Wheat Fields at Pourville (Chemin dans les blés à Pourville),1882. Oil paint on canvas, 23" x 30 1/2", Denver Art Museum Collection: Collection of Frederic C. Hamilton, 2016.365