![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/EXH1140_MonetAliceVenice_20250108-506x640.jpg\")
Claude Monet and his wife, Alice, St. Mark\u2019s Square, Venice, October 1908 (b\/w photo) by French Photographer, (20th century); Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris, France. Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museum<\/p>\nWithout Venice, Claude Monet may have never become known for his iconic water lilies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the bold thesis of \u201cMonet and Venice,\u201d a new exhibition of the impressionist\u2019s work opening March 21 at the de Young museum in San Francisco. <\/p>\n
Monet had canceled his planned 1907 exhibition of his water lilies after he became dissatisfied with his progress on the canvases. Then when his art dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, brought up questions of the series\u2019 marketability, the French painter decided to give up his water-lily project \u201conce and for all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Monet\u2019s wife, Alice Monet, suggested a trip to Venice, which would give her husband an opportunity to work on something other than the flower-dappled waters that had overtaken his soul. What was supposed to be a two-week sojourn stretched into a two-month creative transformation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy trip to Venice has had the advantage of making me see my [water lily] canvases with a better eye,\u201d the artist wrote after his stay in Venice, where he hopscotched around various homes and hotels, a map of which is part of the exhibition. <\/p>\n
Claude Monet and his wife, Alice, St. Mark\u2019s Square, Venice, October 1908 (b\/w photo) by French Photographer, (20th century); Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris, France. Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museum<\/p>\n
He returned to the project he had renounced \u2014 and went on to become famous for his shimmering, watery tableaux filled with lilies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Melissa E. Buron, director of collections and chief curator at London\u2019s Victoria and Albert Museum and the de Young exhibition\u2019s co-curator, had a hunch about the Monet-Venice connection before she found the quotation that underscored her thesis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an art historian, you make certain assumptions and do your best to contextualize,\u201d Buron said. \u201cBut it is really incredible to have, in Monet\u2019s own words, this confirmation that Venice made him see his paintings with a better eye.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The exhibition, in turn, becomes about the nature of inspiration itself \u2014 a process Buron, who formerly worked for the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco before moving to London, learned as she went through a curatorial journey putting together the show. <\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_6749-853x640.jpg\")
Co-curator Melissa E. Buron with Claude Monet, \u201cWater Lilies,\u201d ca. 1914-1917. Photo by Julie Zigoris.<\/p>\n
Buron said it felt appropriate that the exhibition was returning\u00a0 to the city in which the idea for it was born \u2014 and also that it was happening on the centenary of the French impressionist\u2019s death on Dec. 5, 1926.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lessons from Monet emerged: a change of perspective can help in the creative process, moments of self-doubt can fuel one\u2019s work and one is never too old to achieve a vision. Monet was 68 when he left for Venice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMonet thought it was too late to go to Venice,\u201d Buron said. \u201cBut he will go on painting for nearly two decades after that, making the work for which he is most famous.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Monet\u2019s preoccupation with water is a constant in his career, whether he\u2019s depicting scenes in Paris, London or Venice, and \u201cMonet and Venice\u201d has canvases that portray scenes from the Normandy coast, Parliament and the canals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Having swapped his Seine studio boat for a studio gondola, Monet crafted canvases composed of rippling water, shimmering light, and pastel architecture \u2014 but no people. Quite unlike Venice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s swarming with people,\u201d said Lisa Small, senior curator of European art at the Brooklyn Museum.\u00a0 \u201cAnd it was in 1908, too, when he was there, but he made a decision to not see or not paint any of that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Impressionist](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/309707_20250912-930x612.jpg\")
Claude Monet, \u201cThe Palazzo Ducale,\u201d 1908. Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museum. <\/p>\n
The museum previously held exhibitions focusing on Monet\u2019s early and late years; using the Venice approach felt like a way to examine the middle, Buron said, at a time when the museum needs shows with big names to pull visitors in.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Co-organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Brooklyn Museum, \u201cMonet and Venice\u201d gathers together more than 20 of the artist\u2019s 37 Venetian canvases. It\u2019s anchored by two of his masterpieces, \u201cThe Doge\u2019s Palace<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe Grand Canal, Venice<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n Yet it stretches beyond the impressionist\u2019s work to highlight how La Serennisima inspired other artists such as Canaletto, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, John Singer Sargent, J. M. W. Turner and James McNeill Whistler and includes maps and prints of the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/MS_303188_20230130_1_Crop_3000x3000-802x640.jpg\")
Canaletto (Antonio Canal), \u201cVenice, the Grand Canal looking East with Santa Maria della Salute,\u201d 1749-1750. Photo by Randy Dodson, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.![\"Watercolor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/EXT_309643_20120209_3000x3000-803x640.jpg\")
John Singer Sargent, \u201cSanta Maria della Salute,\u201d 1904. Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museum.<\/p>\n