Monet in Normandy Fact Sheet Exhibition Title Monet in Normandy Dates Feb. 18, 2007, through May 20, 2007 Venue The Cleveland Museum of Art (Final Venue) Previous Venues: North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC) October 15, 2006, to January 14, 2007; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (San Francisco, CA) June 17, 2006, to Sept. 17, 2006. Admission CMA members and children under 5-years enter free. Adults, $15; seniors 65 and over: children 6–18-years, university students $10; Groups of 15 or more: $12 for adults and $9 for students. Case Western Reserve University students, $3. Significance Monet in Normandy is the first scholarly exhibition to celebrate the intimate relationship between Claude Monet and his native landscape. Although born in Paris, Monet moved with his family to Le Havre, a charming town on the Normandy coast, when he was a small child, thus beginning the artist’s enduring relationship with the region. The drama and beauty of the coast as enjoyed by vacationers from Paris provided the subject matter for several of Monet’s most significant works of the 1860s. In several deeply personal canvases of 1870, Monet recorded his honeymoon in the Norman seaside resort town, Trouville, with his new wife, Camille. Throughout the 1880s, while living in a suburb of Paris, Monet made numerous painting campaigns to the Normandy coast where he painted the soaring cliffs and shingled beaches from every conceivable angle. The spectacle of the cliffs and sea exposed to the elements became the subject that the artist returned to most frequently throughout this decade. Monet spent the last 30 years of his life in Giverny, a picturesque village on the eastern border of Normandy. The misty Seine, lush wheat and poppy fields, and the artist’s abundant gardens and water lily pond comprised the subject matter of his late paintings. The exhibition is organized geographically, beginning with Monet’s earliest depictions of the resort town, Sainte-Adresse, located on the Norman Coast overlooking the English Channel. The exhibition also includes increasingly abstract, atmospheric descriptions of sea and sky painted from the town of Fécamp; views of the cliffs of Pourville; and several paintings of the fishermen’s tiny church at Varengeville. Monet’s views of the famous rock formations of Étretat are featured in the exhibition. Examples from Monet’s celebrated series of paintings — the Grain Stacks, Poplars, and Rouen Cathedral — all (more) CMA/Monet in Normandy — 2 done in Normandy in the 1890s will be among the highlights of the exhibition. Monet’s late views of his garden at Giverny will conclude the exhibition. Content Featuring about 50 paintings, exhibition highlights include: The Pointe de la Hève at Low Tide (1865); Garden at Sainte-Adresse (1867); Regatta at Sainte-Adresse (1867); The Cliff Walk, Pourville (1882); The Manneport (Étretat) (1883); Grainstack in the Sunlight (1891); and Rouen Cathedral Façade and Tour d’Albane, Morning Effect (1891). Exclusive to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s presentation of Monet in Normandy is CMA’s beloved painting Water Lilies (1920-26), a work that is too fragile to travel. Credits(cid:1) The Monet in Normandy exhibition is organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the North Carolina Museum of Art. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Funding is provided in part by the generous support of the citizens of Cuyahoga County and the Board of County Commissioners. The Ohio Arts Council helped fund this exhibition with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence, and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans. Education and Public Programs for Monet in Normandy are supported in part through a grant from Giant Eagle. Promotional support provided by Continental Magazine, 107.3 The Wave, 89.7 WKSU and the Cleveland Convention and Visitors Bureau. Curators Heather Lemonedes, Ph. D., CMA Associate Curator of Drawings; guest curator Dr. Richard R. Brettell, University of Texas at Dallas; Dr. David Steel, Curator of European Art, North Carolina Museum of Art; and Dr. Lynn Federle Orr, Curator in Charge of European Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Dr. Lemonedes is the lead curator for the presentation at The Cleveland Museum of Art. Publication A fully illustrated, 192-page catalogue, published by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., accompanies the exhibition. The catalogue features essays by Dr. Richard R. Brettell, and catalogue entries by Dr. Heather Lemonedes, Dr. David Steel and Dr. Lynn Federle Orr, providing extensive information about Monet’s relationship with the Norman landscape. Information For more information about the Cleveland Museum of Art and its events, call 1-888-CMA-0033 or visit www.ClevelandArt.org. Media Contact Donna Brock, Director – External Affairs, The Cleveland Museum of Art T: (216) 707-2260; F: (216) 231-6565; [email protected]. # # #