Three spectacular water lily paintings by Claude Monet are to be loaned to the National Gallery as part of the first major exhibition exploring the impressionist passion for decorative arts.
The water lily paintings are among the most popular in the world with the true showstoppers being the series of 22 that Monet donated to the French state in 1922 and which are housed in two oval rooms in the Orangerie museum in Paris.
Those panels cannot ever be loaned. But the London gallery has secured three other examples, including a circular water lily canvas which is a star of the Dallas Museum of Art collection in Texas.
There have been countless art exhibitions featuring the impressionists but never one that explores them as decorators, said the National Gallery.
“We are very excited about it,” said exhibition co-curator Anne Robbins, who is associate curator of post-1800 paintings at the National Gallery. “It must be the last impressionist subject which has not yet been explored. We believe it will make a difference, that it will go against the cliches about impressionism.”
Those cliches include impressionism being all about artists who painted bright and spontaneous plein air (painted outdoors) works. The National Gallery exhibition will explore how they frequently worked indoors and on commissions.
“They painted decorations to earn a living,” said Robbins. “The fact that it has not been looked into so far is probably down to how these paintings were often considered second rate, or that the term ‘decoration’ is something which is a negative.”
Curators hope the show will explode any such prejudices. “We are doing well with loans so it should make a stunning and surprising show,” Robbins said.
It will include more than 80 paintings, decorative panels and rare objects including tiles and tapestries.
There will be works by some of the best known impressionist names including Pissarro, Morisot, Degas, Cassatt, Cézanne and Manet. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who started out as a factory porcelain painter and once asserted that art is made, above all, to “brighten up the walls”, will feature heavily in the show.
The exhibition has been organised by the National Gallery and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, where the show will debut in April 2021.
• Impressionist Decorations: The Birth of Modern Décor will be at the National Gallery from 11 September 2021 to 9 January 2022
