Monet's Paintings of Venice Come to Brooklyn, Then San Francisco
- Oct 16, 2025
- 1 min read
Venice was “too beautiful to be painted,” according to Claude Monet. Yet he painted the Italian city anyway.
In 1908, the French Impressionist and his wife, Alice, visited Venice. When they arrived, he told her that the city was “too beautiful” to paint, adding that he was “too old to paint such beautiful things.” He was in his late 60s at the time, and became enchanted by the location’s light and atmosphere and was able to overcome his doubts.
Monet spent two months in Venice and made 37 oil-on-canvas paintings inspired by his time there, 29 of which debuted in 1912 at a gallery in Paris. Now, the Brooklyn Museum has brought together 19 of Monet’s original Venetian paintings for a new exhibition, Monet and Venice, running until 1 February 2026. After the show closes in Brooklyn, it will travel to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in March 2026.
Monet is best known for his paintings of water lilies; his paintings of Venice are thus generally lesser known. While some of the Venice paintings have appeared in other shows over the years, the Brooklyn Museum’s new exhibition is the first “that really takes that group of work as its focus, as the heart of the exhibition since 1912,” says Lisa Small, senior curator of European art at the Brooklyn Museum.
Alongside Monet’s works, the museum will also feature visions of Venice by other artists, including Canaletto, John Singer Sargent and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
