Monet at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City holds a small group of paintings by Claude Monet that includes one genuinely historic canvas, along with later work from the Giverny years. It is a museum that consistently surprises visitors who arrive expecting a regional collection.

Two bequests and a great American museum

The museum opened in 1933, funded by the estate of the newspaper publisher William Rockhill Nelson and by a bequest from the schoolteacher Mary Atkins. Because the money arrived at the bottom of the Depression, the museum was able to buy remarkable objects at remarkable prices, which is why a city of its size holds collections of this quality. Steven Holl’s translucent Bloch Building of 2007 added a celebrated modern wing, and admission to the permanent collection has long been free, which keeps the museum firmly part of daily life in the city.

The Monet visitors travel for is Boulevard des Capucines, painted in 1873 from the photographer Nadar’s studio window and shown the following year in the first Impressionist exhibition, the show that gave the movement its name. Its crowd of flickering marks scandalised critics who wanted people to look like people. Alongside it the collection includes later work, including water lily subjects from Giverny. Each of the works below can be commissioned as a hand-painted oil reproduction.

6 Monet works from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

A bird's eye view of a crowd of tiny dark figures on a pale street, with a cluster of pink blossoms at the edge.

Boulevard des Capucines

1873

A shaded green riverbank borders a sunlit path and stone arch, painted in soft dabs of green, tan and blue.

Mill at Limetz

1888

Snow Effect at Argenteuil

1875

A snow-dusted lane runs past a stone wall and bare trees toward a village with a church spire under blue sky.

Snow Effect at Argenteuil

1875

Pale clouds reflect in purple-blue water above a cluster of yellow-green lily pads, blended in soft atmospheric strokes.

Water Lilies

1915-1926

Wide horizontal oil painting of a pond surface densely covered in water lily pads and blossoms in cream, pink, and pale yellow, painted with soft blurred brushstrokes; the lower half is dominated by mossy green and gold tones suggesting foliage at the water's edge, while the upper half shifts into hazy violet, blue, and mauve reflections of sky, the two zones merging without a clear horizon line.

Water Lilies

1915-1926

These paintings run from a bustling Paris boulevard to the silence of a lily pond, so the group covers two very different jobs on a wall. Boulevard des Capucines brings movement, warm greys and bare winter trees; it is a natural choice for an entrance hall or a city apartment where energy is welcome. The Giverny subjects do the opposite, adding calm and depth to a bedroom or a reading corner. Both benefit from a simple, unfussy frame that lets the brushwork speak. Have a look through the grid above, then browse the full collection.

Official collection: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art