Claude Monet ,
‘The Artist`s Garden at Vetheuil’,
1860

Monet: The Seine and the Sea - Vétheuil and Normandy, 1878-1883

Location: National Gallery of Scotland
Dates: Wednesday, 6 August, 2003 - Sunday, 26 October, 2003
Sponsored by: The Royal Bank of Scotland

This first exhibition to be shown in the restored and refurbished Royal Scottish Academy building brings together around 80 paintings by the Impressionist master, dating from the years he spent in Vétheuil, when he was at the height of his powers.

This period of critical importance in Monet’s work has not, until now, been the focus of a major exhibition, and paintings will be on loan from museums and galleries around the world. In 1878 Monet moved from Argenteuil, close to Paris, to Vétheuil, a small town on the Seine near Vernon. Monet: The Seine and the Sea is divided into two main sections - contrasting motifs of rural Vétheuil and sublime seascapes painted on the Normandy coast. A third, smaller section, shows for the first time a concentrated group of the portraits and still-life paintings Monet made at this time. Also included is a small selection of paintings by French landscape painters whom Monet admired – Corot, Courbet and Daubigny – and whose motifs his paintings recast in his own individual Impressionist style.