Monet-Mitchell. Dialogue and retrospective

The exhibition Monet – Mitchell creates, for the first time, a visual, artistic, sensorial, and poetic dialogue between the works of two exceptional artists, Claude Monet (1840-1926), with his Water Lilies, and Joan Mitchell (1925-1992). Both artists left their mark not only on their epoch but also on subsequent generations of painters.

Presented at the Fondation Louis Vuitton this autumn, in partnership with the Musée Marmottan Monet, the exhibition will be complemented by a retrospective of Joan Mitchell’s work, enabling the public in France and Europe to discover her work. It is the singular perceptions of these two artists, to a shared landscape, which they interpret in a particularly immersive and sensual manner, that will be shown here.

Claude Monet’s Water Lilies found recognition in the United States in the 1950s, where they were seen as precursors of abstraction by the painters of Abstract Expressionism. In the context of “Monet’s Revival”, in 1957 and 1958, Mitchell took part in exhibitions devoted to the notion of “abstract impressionism,” a term coined by her friend Elaine de Kooning. The rapprochement between the two artists was further reinforced by Joan Mitchell’s move in 1968 to Vétheuil to a house close to where Monet lived between 1878-1881. Joan Mitchell nonetheless asserted full artistic independence.

Faced with the same landscape, namely the banks of the Seine, Monet and Mitchell developed a pictorial approach that they defined in similar terms, with Monet referring to “sensation” and Mitchell to “feelings”. Inspired by the natural surroundings of the Paris Region, both artists shared an acute sensitivity to light and colour, the interplay of which forms the basis of their art. Through her use of hedonistic colour and vibrant light, Mitchell shared evocations of feelings and memories; Monet’s late work was marked by the abandoning of formal contours in favour of colour, which he defined by capturing fleeting light. Monet and Mitchell’s gestural and energetic canvases, which evoke foliage, water, and the atmosphere, reflect their mutual affinity with the landscape.