By Noma Faingold. (March 18, 2026)
Claude Monet of France (1840-1926), the founder of Impressionism and the movement’s most prolific painter, reluctantly visited Venice in October of 1908. At the time, he had grown disenchanted with the way his “Water Lilies” paintings were progressing. His dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, rejected the work, leading Monet to cancel the upcoming show at the Paris gallery and to destroy many of the paintings in the series.
Monet’s second wife, Alice Hoschedé, insisted that he take a break from his obsession by accepting an invitation from baroness and arts patron Mary Hunter, to vacation in Venice and stay at the Palazzo Barbaro.
Claude Monet and his wife, Alice, St. Mark’s Square, Venice, October 1908 (b/w photo) by French Photographer, (20th century); Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris, France. Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Two weeks turned into two months. He was enchanted with the historic Italian city and painted up a storm. The sojourn to the romantic, mysterious city, with its waterways and architecture, not only inspired Monet’s creativity, it led to him evolving as an artist.
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) and the Brooklyn Museum teamed up to mount the exhibition, “Monet and Venice,” to focus on this pivotal period in Monet’s career. The show at the de Young Museum runs from March 21 to July 26, following its presentation at the Brooklyn Museum, October 11, 2025 to February 1, 2026.
Monet meticulously developed his Giverny property into his home, studio and gardens with bodies of water, from 1883 until his death. Endlessly painting his outdoor environment, plein air style, his only Venice visit at age 68, resulted in 37 atmospheric paintings, 21 of which will be at the de Young.
While “Monet and Venice” arranges these rarely seen paintings chronologically, the exhibition offers a sampling of his masterpieces created before and after his Venice work. “Our presentation should give people a sense of the door that Venice opened for Monet in his final years,” said Emily Beeny, FAMSF chief curator of the Legion of Honor. “The paintings tell a personal story of him late in life. It’s a very human story about great works of art. Personal stories offer a way in for visitors.”
“The Palazzo Ducale, Seen from San Giorgio Maggiore.” The exhibition provides a contrast of how Monet painted this Venice building compared to such artists as Canaletto (Antonio Canal). Claude Monet, 1908. Oil on canvas, framed: 32 3/8 x 46 1/8 x 3 1/4 in. Image courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Thannhauser Collection, Bequest, Hilde Thannhauser, 1991.
The exhibition also provides a sort of compare and contrast with other artists, who had different interpretations of Venice, such as Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), John Singer Sargent and J. M. W. Turner. These works will give viewers with crucial insights into the allure and historic tradition of painting Venice.
According to Beeny, Monet resisted going to Venice to paint the city for many years because he was intimidated by the works of Canaletto, Turner and a few of his contemporaries. “I think of him as a confident fellow. His struggles and self-doubt surprised me,” she said. “Yet, it’s reassuring to realize as great a figure as he was in the art world, he experienced self-doubt and found a way through.”
Canaletto’s lively, exacting Venice paintings almost look like photos. While Canaletto was interested in the spectacle and the crowds at Le Palais Ducal, Monet’s rendition of that same landscape is moody, devoid of people and closer to abstraction. They are focused on the water, sky and architecture. Shades of pinks, blues and greens were like new discoveries, as he painted from gondolas on the water.
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), “Venice, the Grand Canal looking East with Santa Maria della Salute,” 1749-1750. Oil on canvas, 52 x 64 7/8 in. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Gift of Diane B. Wilsey in celebration of the Legion of Honor Centennial and in memory of Ann Getty.
“Monet and Venice,” organized by Lisa Small, Senior Curator of European Art at the Brooklyn Museum and Melissa E. Buron, Director of Collections and Chief Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, highlights his fixation with light and water reflections. “It’s amazing the number of colors Monet could find in water,” Beeny said. “His landscapes looked inward instead of outward.”
Claude Monet, “Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect (Le Parlement, effet de soleil),” 1903. Oil on canvas, 32 x 36 1/4 in. Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of GraceUnderwood Barton
Beeny is hoping visitors “allow themselves to be immersed. There will be an aha moment when people realize when the Venice pictures open a door to the water lilies,” she said.
Claude Monet, “Water Lilies,” ca. 1914-1917. Oil on canvas, 65 3/8 x 56 in. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Mildred Anna Williams Collection.
Monet completed the Venice paintings at Giverny shortly after his wife died in 1911. The period of mourning likely influenced the hazy, melancholy color palate of the series.
“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,” Buron said, former FAMSF director of curatorial affairs. “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.”
FAMSF has embraced Monet with two recent exhibitions, covering early works in 2017 and later works in 2019, as well as with acquisitions to its permanent collection, including “The Grand Canal, Venice.”
Monet’s legacy has only expanded in the last 50 years, with a restored Giverny becoming a major tourist attraction in 1980, numerous major museum exhibitions all over the world and the recognition of his influence on Modernism.
“San Francisco loves Monet,” Beeny said. “He’s a great painter of water and we are a great city of water,” she said.
The “Monet and Venice” exhibition runs from March 21 to July 26 at the de Young Museum, 50 Hagiware Tea Garden Dr.
An excellent source for more information and tickets: de Young Museum
Audio tours are free (sponsored by Bloomberg).
Photos of the paintings by Randy Dodson, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco unless otherwise noted. All images may be opened to fill screen by clicking on them.
Claude Monet, “The Rio della Salute,” 1908. Oil on canvas, 31 7/8 x 25 9/16 in. Courtesy of Hasso Plattner Collection
Noma Faingold is a writer and photographer who lives in Noe Valley. A native San Franciscan who grew up in the Sunset District, Faingold is a frequent contributor to the Richmond Review and Sunset Beacon newspapers, among others. She is obsessed with pop culture and the arts, especially film, theater and fashion. Noma has written about poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, artists Tamara de Łempicka, Isaac Julien, and Wayne Thiebaud, numerous independent filmmakers, and singer/songwriters Janis Joplin, Diane Warren, and Linda Smith for EatDrinkFilms.