Approximately six and a half feet square, Irises is one of a series of large paintings Claude Monet undertook during World War I experimenting with familiar motifs on an ever-expanding scale. Lacking a discernible horizon or clear sense of depth, the viewer is both on top of and submerged in this encrusted and disorienting surface, suggestive of water, on which various vegetal and floral forms float.
Together with other related canvases, this work remained in the artist’s Giverny studio long after his death in 1926 and was only rediscovered in the 1950s, having suffered localized damage by shrapnel from shells during World War II. In 1956 the Art Institute’s pioneering curator of modern art, Katherine Kuh, bought this painting from Katia Granoff’s gallery in Paris. Kuh recognized a formal affinity between Monet’s late experimental painting and the public’s growing interest in large-scale, abstract works like those by Jackson Pollock, whose Greyed Rainbow entered the Art Institute’s collection in 1955.
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Art Institute of Chicago, “Homage to Claude Monet,” Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 51, 2 (Apr. 1, 1957), p. 23, 24, 25 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, “Catalogue,” Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 51, 2 (Apr. 1, 1957), p. 34.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Exhibitions,” Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 51, 2 (Apr. 1, 1957), p. 36.
Edith Weigle, “The Wonderful World of Art,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 26, 1957, p. E2.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), pp. 284 (ill.), 322.
A. James Speyer, “Twentieth-Century European Paintings and Sculpture,” Apollo 84, no. 55 (Sept. 1966), p. 222.
Charles C. Cunningham, Instituto de arte de Chicago, El mundo de los museos 2 (Editorial Codex, 1967), pp. 11, ill. 28; 57, no. 4 (ill.).
Jean-Dominique Rey, “Au-delà de la peinture,” in Denis Rouart and Jean-Dominique Rey, Monet, nymphéas, ou Les miroirs du temps, with a cat. rais. by Robert Maillard (Hazan, 1972), pp. 144–45 (ill.).
Denis Rouart and Jean-Dominique Rey, Monet, nymphéas, ou Les miroirs du temps, with a cat. rais. by Robert Maillard (Hazan, 1972), p. 179 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, 100 Masterpieces (Art Institute of Chicago, 1978), p. 94, pl. 51.
A. James Speyer and Courtney Graham Donnell, Twentieth-Century European Paintings (University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 12; 60, cat. 3B6; microfiche 3, no. B6 (ill.).
Horst Keller, with a contribution by Herbert Keller, Ein Garten wird Malerei: Monets Jahre in Giverny (DuMont Buchverlag, 1982), pp. 86; 108; 117; 141 (ill.), 159. Translated by Sylvia Gouding as Monet’s Years at Giverny: A Garden Becomes Painting (DuMont Buchverlag/Dumont Monte, 2001), pp. 86, 108, 117, 141 (ill.), 159.
Claire Joyes, Claude Monet: Life at Giverny (Vendome, 1985), p. 107 (ill.).
Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 4 (Bibliothèque des Arts, 1985), pp. 268; 269, cat. 1833 (ill.).
Andrew Forge, Monet, Artists in Focus (Art Institute of Chicago, 1995), pp. 66; 68; 104, pl. 33; 109.
Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné, vol. 4, Nos. 1596–1983 et les grandes décorations (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996), p. 870, cat. 1833 (ill.).
Caroline Holmes, Monet at Giverny (Cassel/Sterling, 2001), pp. 22–23 (ill.).
Norio Shimada and Keiko Sakagami, Kurōdo Mone meigashū: Hikari to kaze no kiseki [Claude Monet: 1881–1926], vol. 2 (Nihon Bijutsu Kyōiku Sentā, 2001), pp. 144, no. 266 (ill.); 191.
Robert Gordon and Sydney Eddison, Monet: The Gardener (Universe, 2002), pp. 55 (ill.), 94.
Katharine Kuh, My Love Affair with Modern Art: Behind the Scenes with a Legendary Curator, ed. Avis Berman (Arcade, 2006), p. 45.
Joseph Baillio, “Katia Granoff (1895–1989): Champion of the Late Works of Claude Monet,” in Wildenstein and Co., Claude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff, exh. cat. (Wildenstein, 2007), p. 41.
Eric M. Zafran, “Monet in America,” in Wildenstein and Co., Claude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff, exh. cat. (Wildenstein, 2007), pp. 128; 130; 136, fig. 58.
Gloria Groom and Douglas Druick, with the assistance of Dorota Chudzicka and Jill Shaw, The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Kimbell Art Museum, 2008), pp. 18 (ill.), 19 (ill.). Simultaneously published as Gloria Groom and Douglas Druick, with the assistance of Dorota Chudzicka and Jill Shaw, The Age of Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 18 (ill.), 19 (ill.).
Gloria Groom, et. al. Monet and Chicago, exh. Cat. (Chicago: Art Institute, 2020), 20, 32 fig. 11, 127 cat. 82, 142 [incorrectly numbered 1956.1201].
Art Institute of Chicago, The Paintings of Claude Monet, Apr. 1–June 15, 1957, no cat. no.
Art Institute of Chicago, Monet and Chicago, September 5, 2020-June 14, 2021, cat. 82.
The artist (died 1926); by descent to his son, Michel Monet, Giverny [this and the following per Wildenstein 1996]. Katia Granoff, Paris, by 1956; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1956.
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