Installation view of “Monet and Venice,” de Young museum, San Francisco, 2026. Photography by Gary Sexton. Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
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Staff Writer
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March 20, 2026
The de Young is opening a new exhibition featuring the impressionist painter Claude Monet, particularly his beautiful Venetian paintings. The expansive exhibit includes a detailed exploration of Monet’s time in Venice, along with some of his earlier works.
The show also includes works from Monet’s most well-known series of paintings, Water Lilies. Late in his career, Monet’s ethereal paintings of water lilies became some of his most popular works and are shown in museums around the world.
The exhibit’s main focus is a series of paintings of Venice; however, viewers will find paintings from across his career included to give context to the Venetian works.
Claude Monet, “Water Lilies,” ca. 1914-1917. Oil on canvas, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Mildred Anna Williams Collection, 1973.3. Photograph by Randy Dodson, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
“Monet once remarked that he found Venice ‘too beautiful to be painted,’ and it is perhaps this very beauty, and the city’s fame, that has obscured the significance and daring nature of his paintings of Venice,” said Melissa E. Buron, exhibition co-curator. “His Venetian paintings are among the most luminous and poetic of his career, yet they are often overshadowed by his depictions of the French landscape, as well as by his late works that are linked to the rise of 20th-century abstraction. His time in Venice was a critical period of creative renewal that has not previously been explored in-depth before this exhibition.”
While Monet’s Water Lilies series was painted over a span of 30 years, he reflected that his 1908 trip to Venice impacted how he painted his later Water Lilies works. The exhibition welcomes viewers with a large video projection of Venice, setting the stage for Monet’s subject matter.
Claude Monet, “The Grand Canal, Venice,” 1908. Oil on canvas, 28 13/16 x 35 5/16 in. (73.2 x 89.7 cm). Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Gift of Osgood Hooker, 1960.29
Photograph by Randy Dodson, courtesy of the FAMSF
The first gallery shows Monet’s works in other cities, before continuing to the previous artists’ paintings of Venice. Finally, viewers are ushered into Monet’s dreamy, shimmering renditions of Venice with glimmering water and whispers of gondolas throughout.
The final gallery is where Water Lilies live, closing the exhibition with some of his most famous works.
Monet and Venice opens this weekend, on March 21, at the de Young in San Francisco. The exhibition will be open through July 26, 2026. You can learn more and buy tickets here.