NARRATOR:
Sparkling golden sunflowers, the hint of a stairway, tall flowers bursting from two bulbous pots, purple and blue shadows on the dirt path—everything shimmers in the sun-drenched summer light of Claude Monet’s Garden at Vetheuil. Stand back, and you can identify individual forms. [PAUSE] But walk up close, and they begin to break apart, as if they’re about to disintegrate in a flurry of brushstrokes…. Monet applied his strokes in varied directions, heightening the energy of the flickering surface.
Monet is the quintessential Impressionist. He painted on the spot, outdoors, observing the landscape firsthand to capture fleeting effects of light and weather. In 1920, he recalled:
MONET (ACTOR):
“When I began, I believed two canvases would suffice, one for gray weather and one for sun! One day, when I saw that my lighting had changed, I said to my stepdaughter:
Go to the house, if you don’t mind, and bring me another canvas!’ She brought it to me, but a short time afterward it was again different: ‘Another! Still another!’ And I worked on each one only when I had my effect.”
NARRATOR:
Monet was 41 when he painted this scene, and his use of form and color was leading him toward a level of abstraction that would soon exceed that of his Impressionist contemporaries. In the next decade, he would begin his famed series of large atmospheric paintings of the water lily-pond he built in the 1890s, at his home in Giverny. In 1921, France accepted the gift of 12 water-lily panels. The Surrealist painter André Masson once called these paintings “the Sistine Chapel of Impressionism.”
The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil
1881
Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)
On View
The years that Monet spent at a rented pink house in Vétheuil were among the most difficult of his life. The market for his work had collapsed; his wife fell ill and died; his servants all quit. And yet the pictures he painted there, in his lush, sunny garden conceived as an outdoor studio, are among the most exuberant of his career. This view of a path shaded by sunflowers and punctuated with gladioli was one of four studies of the scene that Monet made in the early 1880s. The Norton Simon’s version has long been thought to serve as a preparatory sketch for the largest canvas, today in the collection of the National Gallery of Art. However the artist’s comparatively tight, confident brushwork in this painting—particularly in the handling of the sky and clouds—suggests that it is a more fully realized reduction of the National Gallery’s composition, perhaps made with a bourgeois buyer in mind.
Details
- Artist Name: Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)
- Title: The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil
- Date: 1881
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 39-1/2 x 32 in. (100.3 x 81.3 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1975.09.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
The artist, sold 9 February 1882 to;
[Durand-Ruel, Paris].
d’Alayer, Paris.
[Durand-Ruel, Paris, in 1931, still in 1935].
?[Arthur Tooth & Sons, London; by 1936].
[Durand-Ruel, New York, by 1940].
[Sam Salz, New York].
[E. V. Thaw, New York, sold by at least 1957 to];
Mr. and Mrs. William Goetz, Los Angeles.
Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin E. Bensinger, Chicago, by at least 1969, owned jointly (2/3 share) with the Art Institute of Chicago (1/3 share) (sale, London, Christie’s, 15 April 1975, lot 31, color ill., as Jardin a Vetheuil, to);
[Wildenstein & Co., New York, sold 1975 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
[Durand-Ruel, Paris].
d’Alayer, Paris.
[Durand-Ruel, Paris, in 1931, still in 1935].
?[Arthur Tooth & Sons, London; by 1936].
[Durand-Ruel, New York, by 1940].
[Sam Salz, New York].
[E. V. Thaw, New York, sold by at least 1957 to];
Mr. and Mrs. William Goetz, Los Angeles.
Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin E. Bensinger, Chicago, by at least 1969, owned jointly (2/3 share) with the Art Institute of Chicago (1/3 share) (sale, London, Christie’s, 15 April 1975, lot 31, color ill., as Jardin a Vetheuil, to);
[Wildenstein & Co., New York, sold 1975 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
Paintings by Monet
- Art Institute of Chicago, 1975-03-15 to 1975-05-11
Monet's "Artist's Garden at Vétheuil": Two Versions
- National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), 2018-05-20 to 2018-07-29
Paintings by Claude Monet
- New York, Durand-Ruel Galleries, to
Paintings by Claude Monet in Retrospect 1868-1913
- Arts Club of Chicago, 1933-01-06 to 1933-01-31
A Selected Group of Modern French and American Paintings
- New York, Colony Club, 1920-03-26 to 1920-04-04
Tableaux Durand-Ruel
- Auditorium Building (Chicago, IL), 1915-12 to
Tableaux Durand-Ruel
- Brooks Reed Gallery, 1915-11 to
Works in Oil and Pastel by the Impressionists of Paris; exhibition under the management of the American Art Association fo the City of New York
- National Academy of Design, 1886-05 to 1886-06
Works in Oil and Pastel by the Impressionists of Paris
- American Art Galleries, 1886-04 to
[on loan]
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1976-01-05 to 1976-06-15
[on loan]
- Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum, 1975-07-25 to 1975-12-01
Claude Monet. For the Benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Richard Feigen Gallery, 1969-10-15 to 1969-11-15
Chicago Private Collectors
- Art Institute of Chicago, 1969-07 to 1969-07
Selected Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. William Goetz
- Los Angeles, City National Bank (Pershing Square), 1967-01 to 1967-01
The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. William Goetz
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1959-04-18 to 1959-05-31
A Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Claude Monet for the Benefit of the Children of Giverny
- Wildenstein & Co. (New York, N.Y.), 1945-04-11 to 1945-05-12
Selected Pictures by Claude Monet (1840-1926)
- London, Arthur Tooth and Sons Ltd., 1936-03-12 to 1936-04-04
Claude Monet de 1865 à 1888
- Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, 1935-11 to 1935-12
Les trois impressionnistes: Monet, Pissarro, Sisley
- New York, 1924 to 1924
Masterpieces of French Art
- London, Grafton Gallery, 1905 to 1905
Second Impressionist Exhibition
- Paris, 1886 to 1886
7e Exposition des artistes independants
- ?Paris, 251 rue Saint-Honoré, 1882-03 to 1882-03
Exhibition of Important Paintings: Old and Modern Masters in the New York Art Market from the Collections of Leading New York Dealers
- New York, American Art Association, American-Anderson Art Galleries, 1931-03-15 to 1931-04-04
Reinstallation of South Wing
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-10-07 to 1995-08-13
- Venturi, Lionello, Les archives de l'Impressionnisme, 1939, vol. I p. 226
- Wildenstein, Daniel, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, 1974, no. 683 pp. 118, 406, 446
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 129
- Wildenstein, Daniel, Monet: Catalogue Raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, 1996, no. 683 p. 256
- Dyrness, William, Visual Faith: Art, Theology and Worship in Dialogue, 2001, pl. 3 between pp. 96 and 97
- Rewald, John, The History of Impressionism, 2004, p. 470
- Brettell, Richard R. and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, volume 1, 2006,
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 1173 p. 379
- Leah Lehmbeck, Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection, 2016, fig. 29 pp. 152(ill.)
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