Monet and Venice Finds New Light at the de Young

It is hard to separate the artist Claude Monet from his paintings of water lilies. Reproductions of these paintings saturate our lives. They can be seen on faded prints in doctors’ offices, day planners, umbrellas, clothing, tin candle holders, and even those weird plastic fold-out vases in most museum stores. Because of this, his water lilies have become an unoffensive background noise, almost invisible in their ubiquity. Monet and Venice, a new show at the de Young Museum, offers a refreshingly different view of Monet’s career. At the age of 68, a creatively frustrated Monet traveled to Venice, and it changed the way he saw light and water. Now, 100 years after the artist’s death, it might change the way you see his art. More than half of his 37 known works from this time are on display.

Oddly, Monet chose not to visit the city that had drawn in and enchanted so many of his contemporaries and predecessors until his later years. Monet declared that Venice was “too beautiful to paint.” Overcoming this sentiment, he did go on to paint the famed city, often from the view of the water, as he had done earlier from the Seine in France. The trip that was meant to last a few weeks stretched into two months. Monet’s Venice is a soft and quiet one. The city, through his eyes, is a contemplative space, void of the bustle and traffic of human intervention, as if Venice sprang from the water of its own accord. It is only small hints in Monet’s brushstrokes that suggest the lines of gondolas docked or the many vessels that must have dotted the water. His Venice exists in a gentle palette of crepuscular silence.

“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,” said Melissa E. Buron, Director of Collections and Chief Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, exhibition co-curator, and former Director of Curatorial Affairs of the Fine Arts Museums.

Monet’s works live in stark contrast to the paintings by Canaletto, which are included in the show. The Canalettos, by comparison, are sharply lined and full of people, always lit for midday.

The show also includes works by John Singer Sargent, Paul Signac, J. M. W. Turner, and James McNeill Whistler. It is an engaging journey through a shared subject seen by many artists, and a reminder that no two people will ever see anything in quite the same way. Other works by Monet give a more in-depth view of the artist’s journey before and after his time in Venice. In comparing his works from Normandy, you can see that they are years and styles apart, but unmistakably painted by the same hand. Some of his later water lily pieces are on display, as well as an intriguing self-portrait photograph of the artist’s shadow. Over 100 works make up this show, along with lantern photographs and video projections of Venice during the time of his visit. The de Young’s exhibition design is subtle and appropriate to the content, giving the space a more immersive experience. Monet and Venice ultimately offers a deeper sense of the artist and his vision, beyond the familiar images that have come to define him.

Monet and Venice runs from March 21 through July 26, 2026, at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. For more information, visit their website.