Monet - Mitchell, Exhibition, Fondation Vuitton, Paris: Until 27 February 2023

The Monet-Mitchell dialogue and the Joan Mitchell retrospective showcase the two artists' unique perceptions of landscape and nature, expressed in often immersive formats.

Claude Monet's Water Lilies found recognition in the 1950s in the United States, where they were seen as precursors of abstraction by the painters of abstract expressionism. After André Masson, Clement Greenberg, the famous American critic, took a stand in defence of their modernity: "The principle that [Monet] finally found (...) is broader: it lay not in nature as he thought, but in the very essence of art, in its faculty of 'abstraction'."

In this context of the Monet Revival, Mitchell participated in exhibitions in 1957 and 1958 devoted to the notion of "abstract impressionism", a term coined by his friend Elaine de Kooning. The rapprochement between the two artists was strengthened by Joan Mitchell's installation in 1968, in Vétheuil, in a property close to the one where Monet lived from 1878 to 1881. The artist nevertheless claimed total artistic independence.