CHARLESTON, SC.- Now entering its final five weeks, Impression, Monet: Loans from the Gregg Turk Foundation (on view until Oct. 25) offers visitors to the Gibbes Museum the opportunity to experience three extraordinary landscapes by Claude Monet (1840–1926), the pioneering French artist celebrated as a founder of the Impressionist movement. “We are thrilled to showcase these rarely seen works by Monet at the Gibbes,” says Dr. H. Alexander Rich, the President/CEO of the Museum. “The response has been outstanding from art lovers in our community, and from the many visitors to Charleston.” All three paintings are privately held by the Gregg Turk Foundation on special loan to the Gibbes, with generous support from Dr. Joseph and Meghan Scalea, and Kiawah Partners.

“Impression, Monet: Loans from the Gregg Turk Foundation at the Gibbes Museum of Art presents the brilliance of Claude Monet within our galleries for the first time,” adds Dr. Rich. “The exhibition examines not merely Monet’s art historical legacy, but also his resounding impact on art. A century after his passing, Monet continues to inspire audiences as the world’s most celebrated Impressionist painter.” This is the first time Monet paintings have been exhibited in Charleston by the Gibbes.


“Pommiers en Fleurs,” by Claude Monet (1872). Oil on canvas. Loan courtesy of the Gregg Turk Foundation

Presented at the Gibbes Museum of Art in recognition of the 100th anniversary of Monet's death in 1926, Impression, Monet brings together three privately held landscapes painted at pivotal points in Monet's career — Moulins en Hollande (1871), Pommiers en Fleurs (1872) and Route près de Giverny (1885) —spanning more than a decade of the artist's development. Monet’s revolutionary approach to light, color and atmosphere helped transform the course of modern art.



The exhibition also explores the artist's enduring legacy and the catalytic impact of his creative vision on both sides of the Atlantic, by engaging Monet’s paintings in conversation with selections from the Gibbes Museum's permanent collection, illuminating his profound influence on American art and artists, including: William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, Childe Hassam, William H. Johnson, and Edmund Charles Tarbell.


“Route près de Giverny,” by Claude Monet (1885). Oil on canvas. Loan courtesy of Gregg Turk Foundation.

By the time of his death in 1926, Monet had spent the better part of fifty years redefining what art could be about, what art could look like, and what it meant to be a modern artist. His paintings — and his landscapes, like those on view in this exhibition, in particular — have come to exemplify for many what Impressionism is seemingly all about: to paint only as much as the eye can see, still a groundbreaking idea in the 1860s and 1870s.

Monet’s Impressionism, with its core focus on conveying often fleeting and transient atmospheric and lighting effects, has come to define the movement in our popular imagination, and has wielded the greatest intercontinental influence.



One of the three paintings at the Gibbes, Pommiers en Fleurs was created in 1872 — the same year Monet completed his seminal painting titled Impression, Sunrise. Painted en plein air, or outdoors, Impression, Sunrise sought to capture a moment rather than present a meticulously finished representation of the landscape. When the painting was publicly exhibited in 1874, critic Louis Leroy seized upon its title in a satirical review and derisively referred to the participating artists as "Impressionists."

The artists soon embraced the name “Impressionists” themselves, and a term originally intended as criticism came to identify one of the most consequential movements in modern art.

Monet and the now-named Impressionists united around the idea of illustrating impressions of the social and physical landscapes around them. Everyday life and the the surrounding landscapes became worthy subjects for fine art, while visible brushwork, shifting light and minimally defined forms rejected the highly finished academic tradition.

Initially shocking to the art establishment, Impressionism had emerged by the 1880s as a leading force of the avant-garde in France and throughout Europe, soon exerting a powerful influence in the United States.

“Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love,” Monet once said — a sentiment that resonates with an artist whose paintings continue to captivate audiences a century after his death.

About the Gibbes Museum of Art



The Gibbes Museum of Art, a beacon in the American South for arts and culture since 1858 when the Museum’s art collection was founded as the Carolina Art Association, is heralded as one of the earliest and most longstanding arts institutions in the United States.

The Museum’s collection spans 350 years, and features some of the country’s most celebrated artists ‒ including contemporary, modern, and historical works. With world-class rotating exhibitions and a dynamic visiting artist residency program, the Gibbes is a southern museum with a global perspective. The Museum’s mission is to enhance lives through art by engaging people of every background and experience with art and artists of enduring quality, providing opportunities to learn and discover, to enjoy and be inspired by the creative process.