To mark the 140th anniversary of Claude Monet’s first visit to Monte-Carlo and the Riviera, the Grimaldi Forum Monaco will devote its major summer exhibition to this talented artist from July 8 to September 3 2023.

Bringing a hundred or so works from all over the world together in an are of 3,000m2, the exhibition will be one of the largest monographs devoted to Claude Monet of the decade, and without doubt the most daring.

The exhibition will follow Monet’s work and the artist’s life on the Riviera at a pivotal moment in his life. The exhibition, with more than 100 paintings from all over the world, including many masterpieces that have rarely been shown together – and one that has never been seen before – will offer a new perspective on the Master’s work.

At the crossroads of chronology and theme, the exhibition – curated by Marianne Mathieu, a specialist in Claude Monet – will provide keys to a better understanding of the painter’s quest through exceptional scenography created within a 3000 m² museum space offering total creative freedom.

The prism of light

In 1883, halfway through his long life and settling in at Giverny, Claude Monet, still in search of inspiration, made his first trip to Monte Carlo and the Riviera, which he discovered with his friend Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

He returned alone in 1884 and again in 1888. In Monte-Carlo, Roquebrune, Bordighera and Antibes, he nourished his quest, his obsession, to capture light. As a northern painter, he discovered a new palette of colors, new elements, and found it difficult to paint them. It was during his final stay in Antibes in 1888, that he envisioned his famous series painting from the Salis beach, the fort of Antibes in all the seasons.

As Marianne Mathieu says, “Monet’s work is very coherent. From his youth in Le Havre, to the last paintings in Giverny, the painter does not try to paint a motif, but rather a moment ; Monet does not paint a landscape, but an atmosphere. On the Riviera, between 1883 and 1888, this means maturity; Monet discovers himself as the painter of the series. In Giverny, which he almost never left at the turn of the century, the painter evolved again, changing his point of view, and now painted only the mirror of water. Monet abandoned panoramic views in favor of a tighter framing offering a quasi-abstract vision of the water and its reflections. He does not paint his garden, only the elements of water and light. He paints the image of a floating world.”

In this exhibition, curator Marianne Mathieu invites the visitor to approach Claude Monet’s work through the prism of light: “let’s not ask what Monet paints but rather when he paints it; let’s not look for a motif, but for a moment…”.

Works rarely exhibited together

Around a section devoted to paintings created during his time on the Riviera, 25 exceptional works exhibited for the first time near the still preserved sites where they were painted, the exhibition strives to put the master’s work into perspective, showing his quest to capture light. In all, more than 100 paintings will be presented, dating from the beginning of his life to the end.

This exhibition, one of the largest monographs devoted to Claude Monet in the last decade, and arguably the most daring, with paintings rarely shown together, is organised with the exceptional support of the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris. It also brings together more than thirty lenders: private collections including the Prince’s Palace of Monaco, as well as major international institutions including the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Von der Heydt-Museum in Wuppertal and the Fondation Beyeler in Basel.

Presales open until June 30: 7€ marked down from 14€

Reservations Grimaldi Forum Monaco ticket office: +377 99 99 3000

Today’s Quote

To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at. Claude Monet