Monet at Columbus Museum of Art
The Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio holds paintings by Claude Monet within a collection that has a stronger claim to American art history than its size might suggest. Chartered in 1878, it was among the earliest art museums incorporated in the United States, and it opened its own building to the public in 1931.
An early museum with an appetite for the new
Columbus made its name partly through the gift of the Ferdinand Howald collection, which brought an outstanding group of early American modernist paintings to Ohio along with French works. That gift set the museum’s tone: rather than trying to imitate the encyclopaedic collections of larger cities, it built depth in the art of its own moment and in the European painting that made that moment possible. The result is a collection with a clear point of view rather than a long list of names.
Impressionism sits naturally in that story, because American modernism grew directly out of what artists learned in Paris. Seeing Monet in Columbus, near American painters who studied French light and brought it home, makes the connection unusually clear. The museum has also invested heavily in how visitors experience the collection, with galleries designed for slow looking rather than route marching. Every Monet listed below can be commissioned as a hand-painted oil reproduction or ordered as an archival print.
7 Monet works from Columbus Museum of Art
These paintings work well in ordinary rooms, which is not faint praise. Their scale and palette suit the kind of wall most people actually have: a living room, a landing, the space above a chest of drawers. Monet's landscape colour, green, water blue and soft ochre, is remarkably easy to live alongside, and it sits comfortably with both painted walls and exposed brick. If you are buying your first serious piece of art for a room, a Monet landscape at a medium size is one of the safest good decisions available. Browse the full collection at your leisure.
Official collection: Columbus Museum of Art