Gail Thomas reports from Geelong on the opening of a block buster Impressionist exhibition.
With the Art Gallery of South Australia’s much anticipated upcoming Monet to Matisse exhibition opening in July, more of Claude Monet’s works have taken up residence at the Geelong Gallery in Victoria, as part of the Gallery’s Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel in partnership with Art Exhibitions Australia and ACPA (Advising Curating Producing Art).
This is a landmark event for Geelong Gallery, celebrating its 130th year in 2026, as it is the most ambitious international exhibition in the Gallery’s history. The exhibition flows across five galleries, presenting more than 70 paintings from across two generations of Impressionist artists, the majority from private collections in France and never before seen in Australia.
Throughout the Gallery, works by Monet, Renoir, Berthe Morisot, and Camille Pissarro hang in direct dialogue with a second generation of painters long overshadowed by their illustrious predecessors: Albert André, Georges d’Espagnat, Gustave Loiseau, Maxime Maufra and Henry Moret. Underpinning it all is the remarkable legacy of Paul Durand-Ruel – the art dealer who staked everything on a movement the establishment refused to accept.
Championed by Durand-Ruel in Impressionism’s twilight years, these artists are now being rediscovered, offering audiences a rare and overdue encounter with their work. Never toured outside Europe and the United Kingdom, Discovering the Impressionists is the first of its kind to trace their story alongside the man who made it possible.
Exhibition highlights
Among the highlights are rare decorative panels by André and d’Espagnat, painted for the doors of Durand-Ruel’s private Paris apartment, and a partial recreation of the drawing room in which he received esteemed collectors and displayed the finest works from his collection. Together, first and second generation works illuminate the shared approaches to light and atmosphere that defined the movement, as well as the strikingly distinct personal styles that set each artist apart.
Paul Durand-Ruel (1831–1922) was not himself a painter, but an art dealer of uncommon conviction who, at a time when Monet, Renoir, Pissarro and their peers were ridiculed and commercially shunned, bought their work, nurtured their cause and ultimately transformed public taste across Europe and America. Over a lifetime devoted to art, he purchased and promoted more than 12,000 paintings to ensure Impressionism became known and loved around the world.
Monet’s Haystack series
Claude Monet’s ‘Meules, milieu du jour’ [‘Haystacks, midday’] 1890, is an exceptional destination painting on loan from the National Gallery of Australia with support from the Australian Government as part of Sharing the National Collection.
In 1890, Monet purchased his home at Giverny, where he began the celebrated Haystacks series. These stacks of wheat, tightly thatched for protection against the weather, stood in a field behind the artist’s house at Giverny, a village 60 kilometres from central Paris. From the late summer of 1890 until winter 1891, Claude Monet painted these haystacks at least 25 times. It was the changing effects of light, rather than the stacks themselves, that fascinated him. He faced a dilemma: the more he focused on fleeting atmospheric effects, the longer and more involved his painting process became.
Monet’s ‘Haystacks, midday’ is especially fitting as it marks an extraordinary cultural moment and one that aligns with the Gallery’s own story.
“Our very first acquisition, Frederick McCubbin’s ‘A bush burial’ (1890), was purchased through public subscription and remains a cornerstone of the collection. McCubbin, a founding figure of the Heidelberg School of Australian Impressionism, helped to shape a proud new, modern identity for Australia,” explains Gallery Director and CEO Humphrey Clegg.
“Impressionism has played a major role in the history of Geelong Gallery. Our community founded the Gallery’s Collection through the purchase of this much-loved and now nationally significant Australian Impressionist painting, Frederick McCubbin’s ‘A bush burial’ from 1890.
“We are delighted to be able to loan Claude Monet’s famous ‘Meules, milieu du jour’, also from 1890, to inspire the Geelong community in the same way the French Impressionists inspired their Australian counterparts more than a century ago and I encourage all Victorians to come and see this iconic work.”
Offering local audiences an encounter with one of art history’s most influential painters, Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel, Art Dealer Among the Artists, is running from June 20 to October 11, along with a range of associated events including French language tours, artwork and fragrance, dining, and a sensory masterclass of French wine and Impressionism.
Claude Monet’s ‘Haystacks, midday’ is on display at Geelong Gallery until late 2027.
