Claude Monet
Water Lilies
c.1916-26
Oil on canvas, 78 ¾ inches x 13 feet 11 ½ inches (200.03 x 425.45 cm).
Nelson Atkins Museum of Art
Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 57-26.
Overview of the exhibition at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art
Monet’s water-lilies in full bloom at Nelson-Atkins For the first time in a generation, all three panels of the marvelous water lily triptych by Claude Monet are on view together. The three impressive canvases, each measuring 7 by 14 feet, are displayed at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art from April 9 to August 7, 2011]]>
Source: theartwolf.com / Nelson Atkins Museum
“It took me time to understand my waterlilies. I had planted them for the pleasure of it; I grew them without ever thinking of painting them”
Claude Monet
Claude Monet (1840-1926) is the most important of all the impressionist painters, and his “water lilies” series represents not only the zenith of his artistic powers, but also the culmination of Impressionism. Comprising around 250 paintings, from small sketches to large and impressive triptychs, the series has been described as “The Sixtine Chapel of Impressionism”.
From April 9 to August 7, 2011, one of these large triptychs is on display at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. The triptych is formed by three panels, the right-hand one belonging to the Nelson Atkins Museum, and the other ones owned by the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art. This is the only triptych by Monet in the United States, with the exception of the “Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond” (c.1920), in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MOMA).
Monet’s last works, such as this triptych, were painted while the artist suffered from cataracts. “We don’t even know for sure whether he considered them finished”, says Simon Kelly, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Saint Louis Art Museum and former associate curator of European painting and sculpture at the Nelson-Atkins, adding that “the exhibition will explore the whole issue of process, really giving us a sense of how Monet worked, how he built up his paint layers.”
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