This small but powerful focus exhibition of Claude Monet’s “Waterloo Bridge” series includes the stellar example from MAG’s collection along with seven others borrowed from North American sister institutions. Monet painted over 40 versions of Waterloo Bridge during three London sojourns between 1899 and 1901. He saw these paintings both individually and as an ensemble that, collectively, expressed his sense of the essential subject—the atmosphere and colors of the fog-bound landscape of London’s Thames River. The exhibition Monet’s Waterloo Bridge offers visitors the unique opportunity to experience several versions of the series concurrently, creating a special dialogue that allows a rare glimpse at Monet’s artistic vision as well as the process by which he struggled to achieve that vision.
Close examination of the pigments and surface textures of the paintings, and extensive new imaging and materials analysis conducted on MAG’s Waterloo Bridge by scientists at the Art Conservation Program at Buffalo State University, shed light on Monet’s artistic process. Visitors will be able to explore Monet’s creative process through state-of-the-art interactive technology that makes the scientific imaging accessible, as well as through a documentary video created specifically for the exhibition.
Monet’s Waterloo Bridge is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue, published by RIT Press, with essays on Monet’s London series paintings; the artist, his dealer, and the marketing of the London series paintings; and the interpretation of recent imaging analysis. Contributors include Professor Grace Seiberling of the University of Rochester; Jennifer Thompson, curator of European art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and James Hamm, head of Paintings Conservation at Buffalo State University.
This exhibition is presented alongside Seeing in Color and Black-and-White, which features artists such as Josef Albers, Victor Vasarely, and Jesús Rafael Soto, who chose abstraction over representation to reveal the mechanics of human vision and make viewers aware of how they see.
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Presented by M&T Bank and the Gallery Council of the Memorial Art Gallery, with additional support from Allen C. and Joyce Boucher, Hurlbut Care Communities, Dr. Dawn F. Lipson, McDonald Family, Riedman Foundation, the Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull Fund, and Woods Oviatt Gilman, LLP. Funding is also provided by Nancy G. Curme, Peter and Kathy Landers, James C. and Geraldine Biddle Moore, the Gouvernet Arts Fund at the Rochester Area Community Foundation, and Mark Schork.
This exhibition is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and is also supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
In-kind support is provided by the Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Art Conservation Department at Buffalo State College, Buffalo, New York.