Monet and Water Lilies

Monet’s longstanding preference for creating and exhibiting series of paintings related by subject and perspective began in 1889, with at least ten paintings completed at the Valley of the Creuse, which were showcased at the Galerie Georges Petit. Among his other renowned series are his Haystacks.

During the 1920s, the state of France constructed a pair of oval rooms at the Musée de l’Orangerie as a permanent home for eight water lily murals by Monet. The exhibit opened to the public on 16 May 1927, a few months after Monet’s death. Sixty water lily paintings from around the globe were gathered for a special exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie in 1999.

These paintings are prominently displayed in museums worldwide, including the Princeton University Art Museum, Musée Marmottan Monet, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the National Museum of Wales, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, The Toledo Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Portland Art Museum, and the Legion of Honor. In 2020, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston celebrated its 150th anniversary with some of Monet’s Water Lilies paintings.