‘What a fascinating challenge for an artist’: how Monet captured Venice in his twilight years

2026-03-24 - 15:50

de Young Museum, San Francisco New exhibition brings together the artist’s many Venetian paintings, a perfect match of artist and location that almost didn’t happen Claude Monet was 68 years old before he ever set foot in Venice, surprisingly keeping his distance from a city that for hundreds of years has attracted many of Europe’s best painters. When Monet finally did get there, he created dozens of paintings and the French impressionist’s Venetian works are now the subject of a show at San Francisco’s de Young Museum, simply titled Monet and Venice. “It might have been insecurity, because Venice had been painted so famously and by so many major names in western history,” said the de Young’s Melissa Buron, who co-curated the show with Lisa Small. As she explained, given Venice’s artistic pedigree, even a master such as Monet would have reason to feel intimidated by the location. Continue reading...