Willy Lott's Cottage" by the English artist John Constable, created around 1832.
Marking the 250th anniversary of Constable's birth in 1776, this display celebrates the painter's lifelong engagement with the landscapes of rural England.
A precise observer, John Constable (1776–1837) spent much of his time sketching, drawing and painting outdoors. His most important subjects were the fields and waterways of his native East Anglia and, later in life, the cloudscapes over Hampstead Heath. Constable's sensitivity towards atmospheric effects and nature's poetic potential reshaped the British landscape tradition, making him one of England's most acclaimed painters. Then as now, his art speaks powerfully to the beauty, transience and fragility of the natural world.
In 1888, a donation by the artist's daughter Isabel Constable greatly enhanced the British Museum collection. Primarily drawn from this donation, the selection presented here provides a broad overview of Constable's graphic work during his late career, in the 1820s and '30s. It includes highly finished drawings, preparatory studies for celebrated oil compositions, as well as fleetingly sketched impressions of clouds and rainbows. They show an artist drawn to the daily rhythms of rural life as much as to historical subjects such as the ruins of Cowdray House or Stonehenge.
Ten plates from English Landscape – an ambitious series of mezzotint prints created with David Lucas (1802–81) – reveal Constable's late-in-life contemplation of his legacy as a landscape painter.
Vincent van Gogh is known throughout the world. But his fame was far from inevitable.
From 12 June 2026, the Van Gogh Museum presents Vincent’s Path to Fame, an exhibition that explores how an artist who received little recognition during his lifetime became one of the most famous artists in the world.
After Vincent’s death in 1890, it was by no means certain that his work would reach a large audience. Just a few months later, his brother Theo also died. Theo’s widow, Jo van Gogh-Bonger, was left with hundreds of paintings, drawings and letters, as well as a young son. She could have sold the collection or broken it up. Instead, she took on a far more ambitious task: convincing the world of Vincent’s artistic genius.
Jo gradually built Van Gogh’s reputation through exhibitions, loans, publications and a keen sense of timing. The exhibition shows how, over the decades that followed, Vincent grew from a relatively unknown Dutch artist into a figure of international importance. Vincent Willem van Gogh, the son of Jo and Theo, also played a decisive role. Thanks to his efforts, the collection remained intact and the Van Gogh Museum opened in 1973, making Vincent’s legacy accessible to a broad public.
Featuring paintings, posters, photographs, letters and rarely exhibited archival material, Vincent’s Path to Fame traces the family story behind Van Gogh’s global recognition. From the first exhibitions around 1900 to growing interest in Europe, the United States and Japan, the exhibition shows how reputations are built, how artistic legacies are preserved and how one family continued to stand by Vincent.
‘The story of Van Gogh’s worldwide fame shows that art history does not simply happen,’ says Lisa Smit, curator of painting. ‘Behind every famous artist are people who make choices, take risks and continue to believe in the importance of the work.’
Vincent van Gogh, Quinces, Lemons, Pears and Grapes, 1887, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Vincent van Gogh, Almond Blossom, 1890, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat, 1887, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Exceptional Water Lily Painting by Claude Monet to Lead Sotheby’s Modern
and Contemporary Evening Sale in London With £30-40 Million Estimate
- The Highest Estimate Ever Placed on a Work by Monet to Come to Auction
in Europe -
Alongside An Early Portrait of the Artist’s First Wife,
One of Only a Handful Featuring Camille Monet Ever to Appear at Auction
This extraordinary ‘reunion’ brings together two defining works by Claude Monet.
Painted in 1870, the portrait of Camille reads almost as a manifesto of his pioneering plein air approach,
and is remarkable for its freshness, spontaneity and immediacy of vision. Set beside the water lilies -
arguably Monet’s defining and most recognisable body of work - painted almost half a century later, one
can trace the extraordinary arc of his artistic evolution. In many ways, the painting of Camille reveals the
origins of everything that followed, visually laying the foundations for all the revolutionary language Monet
would go on to create, one that would ultimately alter the course of Modern art.”
Helena Newman
Sotheby’s Chairman, Europe & Chairman, Impressionist & Modern Art Worldwide
Two exceptional works by Claude Monet, painted nearly four decades apart,
will headline Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Evening auction in London on 24 June. Together, the
paintings encapsulate both the origins and culmination of Monet’s revolutionary artistic practice, drawing
on two of his most enduring sources of inspiration: his water garden at Giverny, and his beloved wife
Camille.
Leading the sale is Nymphéas (1907), a lyrically ethereal and luminous view of Monet’s famed water lily
pond at Giverny, carrying the highest estimate ever placed on a work by the artist to come to auction in
Europe (est. £30-40m). It is joined by Camille assise sur la plage à Trouville, an intimate early portrait of
Monet’s beloved wife Camille on the Normandy coast during the summer of 1870 (est. £7-10m).
Offered from the same private collection, the two paintings share distinguished American provenance.
Nymphéas remained in the collection of renowned patron and collector Anne Bass for nearly four
decades, while Camille assise sur la plage à Trouville formerly belonged to Peggy and David Rockefeller.
Having resided in major American collections for generations, both works will now be presented in
London for the first time.
Seen together, the paintings offer a compelling through-line across Monet’s artistic evolution – one that
would ultimately set to alter the course of art history.
Painted on the cusp of Impressionism, the Trouville
portrait captures a fleeting, wind-swept moment with striking immediacy, while Nymphéas, executed at the
height of Monet’s powers, reflects his profound reimagining of landscape, light, and perception.
Together with the Lewis Collection and other major works, this remarkable pairing arrives at a defining
moment for the London art market, bringing an exceptional concentration of museum-quality works to
auction, including some of the highest-value works ever offered in Europe presented under one roof.
CLAUDE MONET
Nymphéas (1907)
Estimate: £30-40 million
Painted at a landmark moment during Monet's
career, Nymphéas belongs to the pivotal group of
water lily paintings executed between 1904 and
1909, a period during which the artist radically
transformed the language of landscape painting.
Dispensing with the horizon line and dissolving
spatial boundaries, Monet rendered the surface of
his pond as a boundless field of light, colour, and
reflection.
His water garden at Giverny offered an infinite
array of shifting effects and hence, for the artist,
an inexhaustible source of inspiration, presenting
subtle tensions between surface and depth, near
and far, permanence and transience – all unified
within an ever-changing, luminous atmosphere.
Nymphéas is executed in the highly coveted
square format, a compositional innovation that
proved critical to Monet’s artistic evolution. By renouncing traditional landscape and portrait orientations,
he abolished the horizon line entirely, intensifying the immersive, near-abstract quality of his water lilies
while enabling an intimate and contemplative focus on floating vegetation and rippling reflections. The
work signals a decisive departure from traditional landscape conventions and anticipates later
developments in abstraction, exerting a profound influence on generations of artists, including figures
such as Mark Rothko, whose work will be exhibited alongside this canvas in the sale.
Softly atmospheric and richly textured, the composition captures the delicate interplay between floating
blossoms, reflected sky, and rippling water, blurring the distinction between the tangible and the
ephemeral.
CLAUDE MONET
Camille assise sur la plage à Trouville (1870)
Estimate: £7-10 million
Painted at a formative moment in the emergence of
Impressionism, this intimate portrait of Camille Monet,
the artist’s beloved first wife, stands as a striking
example of the artist’s pioneering plein air practice,
distinguished by its immediacy, spontaneity, and
freshness of execution.
Works depicting Monet’s first wife are exceptionally
rare: this is one of only a small handful of such
portraits ever to appear at auction. The painting has
never been exhibited or offered for sale in the UK and
has been shown publicly only once, in Paris in 1970.
Unlike most of Monet’s coastal scenes of the 1860s,
which focus on maritime activity, this composition
captures a quiet, personal moment, elevating the
everyday into something profoundly modern. It
remained in Monet’s possession until 1875, when it
was acquired by the poet and critic Émile Blémont, an
early advocate of Impressionism.
Painted in the summer of 1870, on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War, the scene is notably untouched
by the political turbulence of the moment. Shortly thereafter, Monet fled to London with Camille and their
son, taking works from this pivotal period with him.
The Art Institute of Chicago is pleased to announce Willem de Kooning Drawing, on view June 14 through September 20, 2026. This is the first major exhibition to examine the artist’s expansive drawing practice, and the first solo presentation of his work at the Art Institute since 1969.
Willem de Kooning Drawing gathers more than 200 works from across the globe, many of which have never been shown together before, to reveal how the act of drawing was foundational to de Kooning’s entire artistic process and production. The exhibition includes drawings along with major paintings, sculptures, and prints to showcase the totality of his graphic production, from his earliest existing works to his late calligraphic paintings.
Rigorously trained at the Academy of Visual Arts and Technical Sciences in Rotterdam, de Kooning achieved a remarkable command of traditional drawing techniques while still in his teens. In 1926, at the age of 22, he immigrated to the United States to pursue his dream of becoming an illustrator. In New York City, de Kooning found work as a house painter, freelance commercial artist, and window display designer. He became immersed in the New York art scene, ultimately becoming a key figure of the movement that would be known as “Abstract Expressionism” or the “New York School” with contemporaries including Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko.
Ambiguity would become a distinguishing feature of de Kooning’s practice, as his work increasingly dissolved the boundaries between representation and abstraction, male and female figures, “high” and “low” art forms, and, in particular, the disciplines of drawing and painting. Compelled to continually innovate and surprise even himself, de Kooning began experimenting with unconventional drawing methods including working with his eyes closed, which opened up new directions for his art.
“Willem de Kooning continually innovated throughout his career, exploring and expanding ways of seeing and rendering what is seen. He drew incessantly and famously blurred the line between drawing and painting. In the process, he produced a staggering body of work that transformed modern art,” said Kevin Salatino, Chair and Anne Vogt Fuller and Marion Titus Searle Curator. “We are profoundly grateful to The Willem de Kooning Foundation for its unstinting support and commitment to this exhibition. The discoveries that came out of our years of research will allow visitors to gain an entirely new understanding and appreciation of de Kooning.”
This landmark exhibition offers an unprecedented opportunity to experience the full scope of de Kooning’s drawing practice—and drawing’s influence on his work in other media—shedding light not only on its evolution over seven decades but also on the ways it redefined the possibilities of modern and contemporary art.
Willem de Kooning Drawing is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and in consultation with The Willem de Kooning Foundation. The exhibition’s curatorial team at the Art Institute includes Kevin Salatino, Chair and Anne Vogt Fuller and Marion Titus Searle Curator, Prints and Drawings; Mel Becker Solomon, associate research curator, Prints and Drawings; and Charlotte Healy, senior research associate, Prints and Drawings, with contributions from Margaret Holben Ellis, exhibition paper conservator.
The exhibition is accompanied by essays and insights published in an illustrated catalogue.
Watercolor Stories: Art of Charles E. Burchfield presents the fascinating artistic relationship between renowned painter Charles E. Burchfield and Munson’s benefactor Edward Wales Root. The two met in 1929 and began a 25-year conversation about their mutual enthusiasm for art, music, and nature. Watercolor Stories features Munson’s collection of 24 expressive watercolors by the artist as well as a substantial collection of related artwork and archival material from the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, N.Y. The exhibition is accompanied by a new catalogue of Munson’s drawings.
