The Brooklyn Museum in New York has opened an extraordinary new exhibition titled “Monet and Venice,” celebrating Claude Monet’s stunning Venetian paintings more than a century after they were last shown together.
The exhibition, which runs from October 11, 2025, to February 1, 2026, reunites 19 of Monet’s rare works from his 1908 visit to Venice one of the most radiant but least explored chapters of his career.
According to the Brooklyn Museum, “Monet and Venice” is the first major U.S. exhibition in over 25 years dedicated to the French Impressionist. It features over 100 artworks, books, and artifacts, with paintings loaned from international museums and private collections. The show highlights how Monet captured the city’s dazzling interplay of light and reflection, transforming its architecture into glowing, dreamlike forms. “Monet found Venice to be the perfect setting to study how color and atmosphere merge,” said Lisa Small, the museum’s Senior Curator of European Art.
Anne Pasternak, Director of the Brooklyn Museum, said the exhibition offers visitors a chance to see Venice through Monet’s artistic lens. “Through thoughtful interpretation and design, we invite audiences to feel inspired by his vision and immerse themselves in the luminous beauty of his work,” she stated. Monet, who initially hesitated to leave France for Venice, quickly became captivated by the city’s canals, palaces, and shifting light, reportedly remarking that it was “too beautiful to be painted.”
The exhibition also explores how Monet’s Venetian works fit into his lifelong fascination with water and reflection, themes seen in his famous Water Lilies and Houses of Parliament series. Visitors can see how the painter’s experience in Venice helped refine his late artistic style, blending structure and abstraction in new ways. The show includes other artists who painted Venice, such as J.M.W. Turner, John Singer Sargent, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, placing Monet’s approach within a broader art historical context.
To enrich the experience, “Monet and Venice” includes an original symphonic score by composer Niles Luther, creating a multisensory environment that mirrors Monet’s visual rhythm. The museum also displays letters and postcards written by Monet’s wife, Alice, offering an intimate glimpse into their journey and emotional connection to the city. A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue accompanies the event, featuring essays from leading art historians.
The exhibition will travel next to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco from March to July 2026. Art enthusiasts say it represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rediscover Monet’s genius through his Venetian masterpieces, which continue to inspire awe with their delicate harmony of light, water, and architecture.
