Alphonse Mucha. A Triumph of Beauty and Seduction

 Starting October 8 , Rome hosts one of the season's most anticipated events: Alphonse Mucha. A Triumph of Beauty and Seduction .

Palazzo Bonaparte , now a must-see venue for art exhibitions in Italy, is transformed into a temple of Art Nouveau, presenting not only the largest and most comprehensive exhibition ever staged on Mucha , but also broadening the scope to include the great artists of all time who have explored the theme of beauty and female seduction. The guest of honor will be Botticelli 's Venus from the Royal Museums of Turin, an icon and global ambassador for timeless beauty. The exhibition will feature over 150 masterpieces by Alphonse Mucha , retracing his entire career, as well as works by Giovanni Boldini, Cesare Saccaggi, ancient statues, Renaissance works, Art Nouveau furnishings and objects, and much more. Under the patronage of the Embassy of the Czech Republic , the Lazio Region , the Municipality of Rome – Department of Culture and the Czech Centre at the Embassy of the Czech Republic , the exhibition is produced and organised by Arthemisia , in collaboration with the Mucha Foundation and the Royal Museums of Turin . The curators are Elizabeth Brooke and Annamaria Bava , with scientific direction by Francesca Villanti . The main partner of the exhibition is the Fondazione Terzo Pilastro – Internazionale con Poema.

More information: https://artnouveau.club/alphonse-mucha-a-triumph-of-beauty-and-seduction-in-rome-from-oct-8th/

Alphonse Mucha, Reverie , 1896 – lithograph - 68x50 cm, Private collectionMore images: 

https://artsupp.com/en/rome/exhibitions/alphonse-mucha-un-trionfo-di-bellezza-e-seduzione

Monet and Venice

Brooklyn Museum

October 10, 2025–February 1, 2026

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

 March 21 –July 26, 2026

Monet and Venice is  an exhibition that will reunite a selection of Claude Monet’s extraordinary Venetian paintings—a radiant yet underexplored chapter in the artist’s late career. The exhibition, New York’s largest museum show dedicated to Monet in over 25 years, will feature more than one hundred artworks, books, and ephemera, including nineteen of Monet’s Venetian paintings. It will mark the first dedicated exploration of Monet’s luminous Venetian works since their debut in 1912, placing them in context with select paintings from key moments throughout his career, and in dialogue with portrayals of the city by artists such as Canaletto, John Singer Sargent, J. M. W. Turner, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The exhibition follows past presentations on the artist at the Brooklyn Museum, such as Monet’s London: Artists‘ Reflections on the Thames, 1859–1914 (2005), Monet and the Mediterranean (1997), and Monet & His Contemporaries (1991). Monet and Venice at the Brooklyn Museum is sponsored by Bank of America.

Organized with the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, and cocurated by Lisa Small, Senior Curator of European Art, Brooklyn Museum, and Melissa Buron, former Director of Curatorial Affairs, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and current Director of Collections and Chief Curator, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity for visitors to experience Monet’s unique vision of the fabled city.

“It’s thrilling to reunite so many of Monet’s radiant paintings of Venice, including Brooklyn’s own Palazzo Ducale, which was acquired in 1920 and is emblematic of the Museum’s trailblazing commitment to modern French art,” said Lisa Small. “Monet found the lagoon city an ideal environment for capturing the evanescent, interconnected effects of colored light and air that define his radical style. In his Venice paintings, magnificent churches and mysterious palaces, all conjured in prismatic touches of paint, dissolve in the shimmering atmosphere like floating apparitions. We’re eager for our visitors to ‘travel’ to Venice and immerse themselves in the unfolding beauty of these dazzling paintings.”

“We’re delighted to present this groundbreaking exhibition offering a fresh opportunity for visitors to engage with one of the world’s most celebrated artists in a bold new way,” said Anne Pasternak, Shelby White and Leon Levy Director, Brooklyn Museum. “Through thoughtful interpretation and design, we invite our audiences to see Venice through Monet’s eyes and feel inspired by his vision.”

Although the city was already grappling with the effects of pollution and overtourism when he visited, Monet remarked that Venice was “too beautiful to be painted.” In 1908, encouraged by his wife Alice, who hoped the journey would reinvigorate him during a pivotal moment in his career, Monet reluctantly left Giverny and soon became captivated by Venice’s radiant light and architectural splendor. Often overshadowed by his iconic depictions of the French landscape, Monet’s Venetian works are among the most luminous yet underexplored of his career. The pair had planned to return to Venice years later, but in 1911 Alice fell gravely ill and passed away. In mourning, Monet retreated to his studio, where he completed the Venetian paintings and, in 1912, exhibited them to great acclaim in Paris. These were the last new works shown publicly in his lifetime.

Monet visited Venice only once, yet the city profoundly impacted him. With its fragile beauty and delicate interplay of land and sea, Venice became a site of both formal experimentation and symbolic resonance for the artist. Key examples of Venetian imagery by artists who preceded or were contemporaneous with Monet, including Pierre-Auguste Renoir, John Singer Sargent, J. M. W. Turner, James McNeill Whistler, and others, will be showcased, situating Monet’s works within a rich tradition of Venice as a subject of artistic inquiry. Standout works from the Museum’s collection, including four watercolors by Sargent that have been in the collection since 1909, and a group of Whistler’s famous Venice etchings, will be on view. Unlike the bustling scenes painted by artists like Canaletto, Monet’s Venice is almost devoid of human presence. Instead, he focused on rendering the city’s architecture and canals emerging through and dissolving in the encompassing and unifying color and light that he described as the enveloppe.

Claude Monet. The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 1908. Oil on canvas. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, The Lockton Collection, 70.76

In addition to Monet’s paintings of Venice, the exhibition will present over a dozen other works created throughout his career that show his lifelong fascination with water and reflection. Paintings from Monet’s time in Normandy, London, and his home in Giverny—including three of his famed water lily canvases from the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, a private collection, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco—will be displayed, drawing connections between the artist’s Venetian experiments and his broader oeuvre. Monet’s trip to Venice was his last major international journey, serving as both an interruption and a replenishment of his artistic focus. He returned invigorated, with a new perspective on the water lily paintings created in Giverny. As Monet asserted, “My trip to Venice has had the advantage of making me see my canvases with a better eye.”

The exhibition also features historical ephemera such as guidebooks of Venice and postcards written by Alice to her daughter, including one marking where the couple stayed for part of their trip. Select postcards, photographs, and letters are on loan to the Museum from the collection of Philippe Piguet, Alice Monet’s great-grandson from her first marriage.

Monet and Venice will further engage audiences through multisensory elements, including an original symphonic score inspired by the artist’s Venice paintings by the Brooklyn Museum’s Composer in Residence, Niles Luther. Upon entering the Museum’s fifth-floor rotunda, visitors will be greeted by an immersive installation that captures Venice’s unique atmosphere produced by Brooklyn-based design and technology studio Potion. It features film by Joan Porcel and his Venice-based Joan Porcel Studio, and an ethereal soundscape by Luther, using field recordings he captured in Venice and fragments of melodic themes drawn from his symphony. This visual and aural experience sets the stage for the visitor’s journey through Venice in the subsequent exhibition galleries.

“In composing for this exhibition, I’ve approached the paintings as souvenirs in the way Monet described them—memories infused with both beauty and melancholy,” says Luther. “My process is one of discovery, not invention—uncovering music no one has yet heard. Blending Italian, French, and American traditions, the composition mirrors Monet’s shimmering, dissolving Venice, transforming brushstrokes into living sound that surrounds the listener with both light and longing.”

In the culminating gallery, Luther’s full symphony enters into dialogue with Monet’s paintings of Venice. Three paintings, depicting the Palazzo Dario, the San Giorgio Maggiore, and the Palazzo Ducale, helped inspire and shape the emotional landscape of the composition. Just as Monet sought to render Venice‘s unique atmospheric enveloppe—where light, water, and architecture merge into unified sensory impressions—Luther translates these dissolving effects into an immersive sonic experience, deepening and enriching the visitor’s journey to Venice with Monet. After exiting the exhibition into an educational activity area, visitors will be surrounded by wall murals that depict archival imagesof the re-creation of Venice at Dreamland in Coney Island, linking the borough with the mythologized city.

A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue will accompany Monet and Venice, featuring an introduction by Melissa Buron and essays by Lisa Small, Niles Luther, and leading scholars of Impressionism and nineteenth-century art, including André Dombrowski, Donato Esposito, Elena Marchetti, Félicie Faizand de Maupeou, Jonathan Ribner, and Richard Thomson. These contributions explore Monet’s Venice works from sociohistorical and ecocritical perspectives, enriching our understanding of this pivotal moment in the artist’s career.

Images

Claude Monet, "The Grand Canal, Venice," 1908. Oil on canvas, 28 13/16 x 35 5/16 in. (73.2 x 89.7 cm). Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Gift of Osgood Hooker, 1960.29 Photograph by Randy Dodson, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Claude Monet, "The Doge’s Palace (Palais ducal)," 1908. Oil on canvas, 32 × 39 in. (81.3 × 99.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of A. Augustus Healy, 20.634 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

Claude Monet, "Venice, Palazzo Dario," 1908. Oil on canvas, 26 1/16 × 32 3/16 in. (66.2 × 81.8 cm). The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection, 1933.446 Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY

Claude Monet, "Palazzo Contarini," 1908. Oil on canvas, 28 3/4 x 36 1/4 in. (73 x 92 cm). Hasso Plattner Collection / Sammlung Hasso Plattner Courtesy Hasso Plattner Collection / Sammlung Hasso Plattner

Claude Monet, "The Palazzo Ducale," 1908. Oil on canvas, 22 7/16 x 36 1/4 in. (57 x 92 cm). Hasso Plattner Collection / Sammlung Hasso Plattner Courtesy Hasso Plattner Collection / Sammlung Hasso Plattner

Claude Monet, "The Palazzo de Mula, Venice" 1908. Oil on canvas, 25 9/16 × 36 1/4 in. (65 × 92 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.182 Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Claude Monet, "The Doge's Palace Seen from San Giorgio Maggiore, 1908. Oil on canvas, 25 3/4 x 36 1/2 in. (65.4 x 92.7 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. McVeigh, 1959 (59.188.1) Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY

Claude Monet, "The Rio della Salute," 1908. Oil on canvas, 31 7/8 x 25 9/16 in. (81 x 65 cm). Hasso Plattner Collection / Sammlung Hasso Plattner Courtesy Hasso Plattner Collection / Sammlung Hasso Plattner

Claude Monet, "Water Lilies," ca. 1914-1917. Oil on canvas, 65 3/8 x 56 in. (166.1 x 142.2 cm). Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Mildred Anna Williams Collection, 1973.3 Photograph by Randy Dodson, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Claude Monet, "Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect (Le Parlement, effet de soleil)," 1903. Oil on canvas, 32 x 36 1/4 in. (81.3 x 92.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Grace Underwood Barton, 68.48.1 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

John Singer Sargent, "Santa Maria della Salute," 1904. Oil on canvas, 18 3/16 x 22 15/16in. (46.2 x 58.3cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchased by Special Subscription, 09.838 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

Canaletto (Antonio Canal), "Venice, the Grand Canal looking East with Santa Maria della Salute," 1749-1750. Oil on canvas, 52 x 64 7/8 in. (132.08 x 164.783 cm). Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Gift of Diane B. Wilsey in celebration of the Legion of Honor Centennial and in memory of Ann Getty, 2022.61 Photograph by Randy Dodson, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Christie's 20/21 evening sale in october 2025 Lucian Freud:

 

christie's to offer three major works by lucian freud in its 20/21 evening sale in october 2025

From the same private collection, Self-portrait Fragment, Woman with a Tulip, and Sleeping Head | each represent a pivotal moment in the artist's career

Post-War & Contemporary Art

LondonEMEA24 September 2025

Lucian Freud, Self-portrait Fragment, circa 1956.  

Christie's announces three important works by Lucian Freud coming from the same private collection - Self-portrait Fragment, Woman with a Tulip, and Sleeping Head – to be offered in its 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 15 October 2025. These paintings each represent a pivotal moment in the artist's career, painted between the 1940s and the 1960s and tracing Freud's artistic evolution from the precision of his early portraits to the expressive brushwork that would define his mature style. Widely exhibited worldwide, in important exhibitions such as Lucian Freud: Paintings (1987–88), which travelled to Washington, Paris, London and Berlin, Freud's posthumous retrospective at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, in 2013, and Lucian Freud: New Perspectives, the centenary exhibition at the National Gallery, London and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid in 2022-23, these works together reflect the evolution of his early years, capturing both the transformation of his technique and the intimate moments of his personal life. 

Katharine Arnold, Vice-Chairman 20/21, and Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, Europe at Christie's: “There is a wonderful relationship between each painting; there is an arc of technique from fine sable brushes on gessoed panel to create an icon in Woman with a Tulip (1944), to a turning point in Self-portrait Fragment (circa 1956) using coarse hog's hair brushes, to the freedom of movement found in Sleeping Head (1961-1971). Of course these three paintings all correspond to three decades of the artist's life with all the changes that accompanied the passage of time: from Lorna Wishart, Kitty Garman and Caroline Blackwood to greater freedom as a single man in the 1960s. Inevitably each painting is in some way a reflection of himself, as I suspect a great deal of the artist was always latent in the paint. There is so much to be said about each painting alone: the self-portrait and the concept of positive and negative space, what it is to be 'finished', the wonderful sense of presence and soul that exists in the light behind his eyes, the fingertips pressing into the flesh of his cheek, the echoes with Caroline's look in Hotel Bedroom (1953-54). In Woman with a Tulip, it is the open frontality of Lorna's beautiful face, the devotional act of painting and placing a tulip before her, the simple wooden panel painted at the height of the War. In Sleeping Head, it is the extraordinary sense of peace implied in the trust of a woman observed while sleeping and the confidence found in the artist's new freedoms of the 1960s. We are honoured to be offering these works as highlights in our 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 15 October.”

SELF-PORTRAIT FRAGMENT, circa 1956

“We might imagine that, as he painted Self-portrait Fragment, the shock of the discovery so frightened him that he stopped work on the picture as if he had heard the sound of breathing come from the figure emerging on the canvas.” – Toby Treves

Lucian Freud's Self-portrait Fragment (circa 1956), held in the same private collection for nearly sixty years, is a rare and significant work within the artist's oeuvre. First shown at Marlborough Gallery, London, in 1968, it was enjoyed privately and remained unseen in public for forty-five years until its reappearance in Freud's posthumous retrospective at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, in 2013. More recently, it has featured in surveys at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery, London, and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Larger than life, the painting conveys both exquisite detail and raw immediacy: Freud's sharply modelled features emerge from open space, animated by richly worked brushstrokes that mark his transition from fine sable brushes to a broader, more expressive handling of paint. Painted during the breakdown of the artist's marriage to Caroline Blackwood, the work might also be seen as an image of dissolution.

Belonging to the non finito tradition exemplified by the unfinished sculptures of Michelangelo and Auguste Rodin, Freud may also have drawn on works he encountered in London collections, such as Michelangelo's The Entombment (1500–1501, National Gallery) and Paul Cezanne's Still Life with Water Jug (c. 1892–1893, Tate). Self-portrait Fragment reflects Freud's exploration of self-image: in its combination of precision and incompletion, the painting marks the evolution of his technique.
As part of a series of self-portraits tracing the artist's development over five decades, the work shows Freud's sustained scrutiny of flesh, form, and self, while offering a view of both his painterly process and psychological focus. The work also stands as a deeply introspective record of the mid-1950s, a period marked by personal upheaval and his close friendship with Francis Bacon. In Freud's centenary exhibition at the National Gallery, Self-portrait Fragment was shown alongside his portrait Francis Bacon (1956–57). This striking pairing highlighted the profound impact of Bacon on Freud's art. The two had been inseparable since the mid-1940s, meeting almost daily - carousing in Soho, exchanging ideas, and visiting one another's studios - and their artistic dialogue left a lasting imprint on Freud's work. 

WOMAN WITH A TULIP, 1944

Woman with a Tulip (1944) is a defining work of Freud's early career and the first of two paintings of Lorna Wishart, one of the renowned Garman sisters, whom he described as “the first person who meant something to me.”
The other painting of Lorna by Freud – Woman with a Daffodil, 1945 – is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Painted in the precise style of his youth, it shows Wishart before the cut head of a tulip, a motif recalling devotional icons and medieval portraiture. First exhibited in Freud's debut solo show at the Lefevre Gallery in 1944, it later appeared in the Arts Council survey of 1974, the Tate retrospective of 2002–03, and most recently in Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery, London, and Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (2022–23).

The painting marks a moment of personal and artistic intensity. Freud attends closely to Wishart's eyes, lips, and the tulip's curved petals. Beyond her appearance, it was her presence and character that shaped his work during their three-year relationship, informing motifs that recur in his early practice. Freud denied external influences often linked to this style, such as the German New Objectivity movement, insisting that his focus was solely on the subject.

With its piercing focus and iconic format, Woman with a Tulip foreshadows Freud's celebrated portraits of the later 1940s, such as Girl with a Kitten (1947) and Girl with Roses (1947-48), while already displaying the “involuntary magnification” of features that attracted him and defined his style during that time.

The painting recalls the clarity of Renaissance miniatures but carries a modern unease. It is both a record of an intense relationship and an important step in Freud's ongoing study of the psychological connection between painter and sitter.

SLEEPING HEAD, 1961-71

Sleeping Head (1961–71) marks a turning point in Freud's career. It shows a young woman resting on the leather sofa in his Delamere Terrace studio in Paddington. The closely cropped head is shaped with broad strokes of light and shadow, bringing out the textures of hair, skin, and bone.

First exhibited at Marlborough Gallery in 1963, the painting went on to feature in important surveys including the 1974 Arts Council retrospective and, most notably, Lucian Freud: Paintings (1987–88), the international exhibition that travelled to Washington, Paris, London and Berlin and cemented Freud's reputation as one of the greatest living painters at the time.

The painting reflects Freud's shift in the early 1960s from the precise detail of his earlier years to a freer, more vigorous style that would define his later nudes. He met the sitter in a Soho bar after returning from Greece and completed the work quickly, over six or seven sittings, with only light revisions later.

Sleeping Head shows Freud's growing confidence in using paint to capture the vitality of flesh. Though intimate in scale, it anticipates his large nude portraits, its contours hinting at the body beyond the frame. Combining stillness with close attention, the painting is both a study of repose and a landmark in Freud's development - an image where, as he later said, “the paint is the person.”

The three works will be on view at Christie's King Street in London from 8 to 15 October as part of the 20/21 view during Frieze Week. All information available on christies.com