This spectacular exhibition features 141 works, including some of the most important paintings produced by the great French Impressionist, Claude Monet.
Inspired by Monet’s Houses of Parliament, Effect of Fog (1904), the exhibition reunites this painting with others from one of the artist’s most successful shows at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in Paris in 1904. Monet narrowed down approximately 100 paintings to 37 for his show at Durand-Ruel. The MFA’s Houses of Parliament was part of that historic exhibition. Other paintings from his "Views of the Thames" series are included in Monet’s London.
A dozen masterpieces by the artist are on view. Stellar works by such contemporaries as Pissarro, Tissot, Derain, and Daubigny, and the Americans, Whistler, Homer, and Hassam will also be displayed. This is the first time in the United States that Monet’s London canvases have been shown with paintings of the Thames by other gifted artists.
In addition to oil paintings, Monet’s London includes watercolors, drawings, photographs, and a large number of prints by such "painter-printmakers" as Félix Buhot, Henri Guérard, and Joseph Pennell. MFA Chief Curator Dr. Jennifer Hardin curated the exhibition, which features works from many major American and European museums.
Monet (1840-1926) was one of a number of progressive artists drawn to London during the period covered by the exhibition. London was a leading commercial center, as well as the capital of the British empire, and attracted people from around the globe. Urban development, increasing industrialization, and the busy port and docks dramatically altered the banks along the Thames and the overall environment.
Such changes and the vast fogs мейд London, especially near the river, an ideal place for Monet to paint. He was especially fascinated with capturing changes in the atmosphere and the reflection of light on water.
The city earlier drew the American expatriate artist, James McNeill Whistler, who left Paris for London in 1859 and whose Thames Set became one of the period’s most influential series of prints. Whistler’s work in London encouraged other leading artists, including Monet, to cross the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean. Monet’s London includes exceptional prints by Whistler, with the majority coming from the outstanding graphics collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art and the New York Public Library.