Epic news for art lovers young and old: Claude Monet’s incredible waterlilies are coming to York Art Gallery this spring as part of a new exhibition! The iconic painting, ‘The Water-Lily Pond’ will be the centrepiece of an exhibition that will bring together key loans from regional and national institutions and a large-scale commission by contemporary artist Michaela Yearwood-Dan. The exhibition will run from 10th May to 8th September 2024 and it’s not to be missed.

Monet’s canvas will be explored in the context of 19th-century French open-air painting, pictures by his early mentors, and the Japanese prints which transformed his practice and beloved gardens in Giverny. By displaying canvases by those contemporaries he inspired, as well as more modern artworks and a new commission, the exhibition will reveal how Monet’s radical approach to painting had, and continues to have, an enduring influence on artists. 

In 1893 Monet bought a plot of land next to his house in Giverny. He had already planted a colourful flower garden, but now he wanted to create a water garden “both for the pleasure of the eye and for the purpose of having subjects to paint”. He enlarged the existing pond, filling it with exotic new hybrid water lilies, and built a bridge at one end, inspired by examples seen in Japanese prints. The water garden became the main obsession of Monet’s later career. The National Gallery’s 1899 ‘The Water-Lily Pond’ painting was amongst his earlier canvases on this theme. 

Good to know

York Art Gallery Opening Times – Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm 
More information – www.yorkartgallery.org.uk