Melbourne Event: Monet’s Garden at the NGV

Waterlilies (Nymphéas) (1916–19)
by Claude Monet

Opening in May 2013, this stunning exhibition will be devoted to Claude Monet’s iconic garden at Giverny and will include more than fifty masterpieces from the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, as well as paintings from leading international museums and private collections.

Renowned as the ‘father of French Impressionism’ Monet’s forging of a new artistic style was inspired by his direct experiences of nature, culminating in the ravishing depictions of his own lily and flower gardens in the rural property at Giverny, northern France, that became his lifelong obsession. Through a magnificent and sweeping series of paintings, visitors will experience every facet of Monet’s picturesque garden; the iconic Japanese footbridge and water lily ponds, but also the irises, agapanthus, wisteria, weeping willow and alleys of roses with which Monet surrounded himself and which he painted repeatedly.