Pop Art and Impressionism Meet At Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

Monet's Garden Goes Pop Exhibit

Florida’s Marie Selby Botanical Gardens are featuring their latest immersive exhibition “Roy Lichtenstein: Monet’s Garden Goes Pop!” at their Downtown Sarasota, FL campus from February 13 through June 27, 2021. In addition to sharing some of the Pop Artist’s interpretations of the French impressionists works, the grounds have been turned into a living homage to them both.

Monet’s Garden Goes Pop! Exhibit

Monet's Garden Goes Pop! Exhibit

Roy Lichtenstein: Monet’s Garden Goes Pop! is the latest in Selby Gardens’ series of immersive exhibitions which explore the connection of nature and flowers to major artists while showcasing the works of art in a garden setting.

Monet garden entrance lichtenstein wisteria

Throughout his career, Roy Lichtenstein replicated the works of other artists in his Ben-Day dotted patterns. Much of his oeuvre includes paintings and sculpture based on pieces by well-known Surrealists, Impressionists, Futurists and Fauvists. Coincidentally, Lichtenstein has been criticized of late for appropriating the work of others in his famous comic book paintings.

lichtenstein at marie selby botanical gardens

monet garden goes pop screengrab 4

Lichtenstein was influenced by Monet as far back as 1969 when he created a series of 7 lithographs of Monet’s Haystacks and as recently as 1992 when he created a group of works as an homage to his famous Water Lilies.

Lichtenstein, in his studio painting water lilies, 1992
Lichtenstein, in his studio painting water lilies, 1992

The grounds at the Botanical Gardens are decorated with Lichtenstein-inspired sculptural and painted interpretations of Monet’s work.

Roy Lichtenstein, Haystacks (yellow), 1969.
Roy Lichtenstein, Haystacks (yellow), 1969.
lichtenstein monet haystacks
Haystacks on the grounds at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

Familiar imagery from Giverny, such as Monet’s Japanese bridge, have taken on a new look and feel with pop art water lilies floating on the water beneath it.

monet bridge lichtenstein lily pads

pop art water lilies IIHIH

monet pond lichtenstein art selby gardens

selby gardens monet lichtenstein

As we previously mentioned,  Claude Monet’s paintings of his garden and surroundings at Giverny were reimagined by Lichtenstein in a group of six works that form a series to pay homage to the Impressionist’s water lily paintings. These innovative works were made on stainless steel to appear to reflected like water. Some of these rarely seen screen prints are included in the exhibit.

Inside the Botanical Garden's Museum of Art
Inside the Botanical Garden’s Museum of Art
Roy Lichtenstein, Waterlillies With Clouds, 1992
Roy Lichtenstein, Waterlillies With Clouds, 1992
Roy Lichtenstein, Waterlillies with willows, 1992
Roy Lichtenstein, Waterlillies with willows, 1992

Press release from Marie Selby Botanical Gardens:
Roy Lichtenstein made his name by applying his Pop Art interpretation to cultural icons like Mickey Mouse and images from American advertising. Yet, he was also fascinated by landscapes and the popular art form of Impressionism. Starting in the 1960s, he paid homage to — and radically reimagined — Monet’s Impressionist works.

On view exclusively at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus from February 13-June 27, 2021, Roy Lichtenstein: Monet’s Garden Goes Pop! will showcase the legendary Pop artist’s take on several staples of the public imagination: Claude Monet’s paintings of his garden and surroundings at Giverny. The display of these large-scale, rarely seen artworks will be accompanied by a complete transformation of the Downtown Sarasota campus’s 15 acres into Monet’s garden at Giverny as imagined through the aesthetic of Lichtenstein.

monet's garden goes pop!

“It will be like stepping into Lichtenstein’s world – if he had created a world based on Monet,” says Jennifer Rominiecki, president and CEO of Selby Gardens. “Our horticultural team is taking the principles that Lichtenstein applied to his artwork and applying those to our interpretation of Monet’s garden at Giverny. This innovative, immersive interpretation has never been done before.”

An avid gardener, Monet once said, “My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.” Indeed, it is still renowned in both the art and horticultural worlds. But looking at it through Lichtenstein’s eyes creates an evocation that’s a bit off-the-wall, a little tongue-in-cheek, and a whole lot of fun.

monets garden goes pop screengrab

“We’re basically saying that if Lichtenstein had created Monet’s garden, this might be what he would have dreamed up,” says Rominiecki. “By giving our gardens the Monet treatment with an innovative and playful Pop Art twist, our guests will be able to explore Lichtenstein’s interpretation of Monet in a variety of ways.”

Familiar components of Monet’s garden at Giverny will appear at Selby Gardens – but with a new spin. The iconic Japanese Bridge will span Selby Gardens’ koi pond but look as if Lichtenstein painted it. A mix of 2D and 3D elements will playfully reimagine Monet’s home or his much-painted water lilies. These surprising intersections between Impressionism and Pop Art will engage visitors as they move through the gardens en route to the Museum of Botany & the Arts.

monet garden art lichtenstein

There viewers will be able to admire Lichtenstein’s Water Lilies with Reflections series, a limited edition of large-screen prints created in the latter years of his career that reinterprets the extreme painterly sensibilities of Monet’s famous Water Lilies. Printed on metal, Lichtenstein’s Water Lilies series uses flat areas of color, Ben-Day dots, and the reflective qualities of the material to imply motion and the movement of light. Earlier works from Lichtenstein’s Haystack series and archival photographs of Lichtenstein at work and at home will also be on view.

These imaginative works highlight both Lichtenstein’s Pop Art sensibilities and his shift later in his career into subtler explorations of color, light, and materials. “Using the medium of screen printing, in which Lichtenstein displayed his greatest originality, these works steep us in the rich theme and variation of serial imagery,” says Dr. Carol Ockman, curator-at-large for Selby Gardens and Robert Sterling Clark Professor of Art History Emerita at Williams College. “By converting the premier Impressionist’s work into a vernacular form like comics through his use of industrial materials with glossy surfaces, Lichtenstein playfully eviscerates Monet’s personal style.”

monet's garden a la lichtenstein IIHIH

Admission to Roy Lichtenstein: Monet’s Garden Goes Pop! is included with all-access admission to Selby Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus: $25 adults, $15 children 4-17, and free for members. Artworks featured in the exhibition are on loan from the Norton Museum of Art (West Palm Beach), the Pérez Art Museum (Miami), and the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation (New York).

Selby Gardens will present Lichtenstein- and Monet-themed lectures, performances, family programs, special tours, school curricula, and additional programs that complement the exhibition. A full schedule of events will be available later this year at www.selby.org.

images and information courtesy of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens