Begun in 2015, this immersive exhibition series curated by Carol Ockman, Ph.D., Selby Gardens’ Curator-at-Large and Robert Sterling Clark Professor of Art History Emerita at Williams College in Massachusetts, examines master artists and their relationships to nature in the context of a botanical garden. Seeing master works of art—often on loan from major art institutions around the world—in a garden setting awakens new comparisons in viewers’ minds. The 2020 exhibition in the series, Salvador Dalí: Gardens of the Mind, transformed the Downtown Sarasota campus into a surrealist wonderland.
Roy Lichtenstein: Monet’s Garden Goes Pop!
February 13 to June 27, 2021, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This exhibition showcases the legendary Pop artist’s screen prints based on Monet’s world-famous paintings of waterlilies and haystacks. Lichtenstein’s rarely seen Water Lilies and Haystacks provide an unexpected homage to a staple of the public imagination — Monet’s paintings of his garden and home at Giverny that inspired them.
The display of Lichtenstein’s art in the midst of a horticultural evocation of Giverny creates a unique experience for more than 100,000 garden visitors. Selby Gardens, transformed into Monet’s famed gardens at Giverny through the Pop Art lens of Roy Lichtenstein, includes iconic elements of Monet’s garden such as the green Japanese bridge, trellises, and benches. This conjuring of Lichtenstein’s world also serves as the dynamic backdrop to the lush plantings and mixed borders for which Monet’s paintings were renowned. An avid gardener, Monet once said, “My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.” Marie Selby Botanical Gardens evokes this crowning achievement with a surprising Pop Art twist.
Read the press release here.
Reviews
“tour de force show”
Architectural Digest
“a colorful collision of two legends that brings a bit of France to Florida”
Travel + Leisure
“is a vibrant, creative display of art and nature”
Tampa Bay Times
Monet’s House in Bloom
Photo Courtesy of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
Water Gardens at Giverny
Photo Courtesy of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
Pop! Goes the Conservatory
Photo Courtesy of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
Haystacks
Photo Courtesy of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
A Pond that Pops
Photo Courtesy of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
Jardin de Fleurs
Photo Courtesy of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
Grande Allée with Wisteria
Photo Courtesy of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
Musée de Botanique et des arts
Photo Courtesy of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
Laurie Lambrecht
Photograph of Roy working on a collage for his Water Lilies with Japanese Bridge, 1992, in his Southampton studio
Photograph, 1992.
©Laurie Lambrecht, 1992
Roy Lichtenstein. Water Lilies with Willows, 1992.
Screen print enamel on stainless steel, 58 x 104 in.
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, gift from the Collection of Mary M. and Sash A. Spencer
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein. Water Lilies with Clouds, 1992.
Screenprint on enamel on stainless steel, 65.41 x 44.76 in.
Norton Museum of Art
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein, Haystack (yellow) 1969.
Screenprint on Fabiano wove
14 3/8 x 17 ¼ in
Private Collection, New York