Monet and London: Views of the Thames

I would love to see this exhibit.

From: The Smithonion Magazine "Claude Monet had planned to display his paintings of the river Thames at a London exhibition in 1905. However, weeks before the show opened, the artist postponed it, believing the works weren’t up to snuff. Nearly 120 years later, the long-awaited exhibition is finally coming together: London’s Courtauld Gallery has reunited many of the original pieces to execute Monet’s vision. The show, “Monet and London: Views of the Thames,” will open this fall. Between 1899 and 1901, Monet created 94 pieces featuring the Thames over the course of three trips to London. These works showed the Charing Cross Bridge, the Waterloo Bridge and the Houses of Parliament at different times of day and in various weather conditions. “Some of Monet’s most remarkable Impressionist paintings were made not in France but in London,” says the Courtauld Gallery in a statement. “They depict extraordinary views of the Thames as it had never been seen before, full of evocative atmosphere, mysterious light and radiant color.” In 1904, Monet presented 37 of his Thames paintings at a show in Paris, where they were a big hit. Building on this success, the artist started organizing an exhibition at Dowdeswell’s, a London gallery on New Bond Street. “I have always wanted to show my Londons here, for my own satisfaction,” the artist wrote in a letter during a trip to England in 1904, per the Art Newspaper’s Martin Bailey. Just months after the show’s announcement, Monet’s big plans started to unravel. The Manchester Courier reported that the artist had delayed the exhibition indefinitely, writing that “Monet is dissatisfied with the quality of the canvases which he intended to show, hence the postponement.”