Image: Geelong Art Gallery
Geelong Gallery is presenting 'Claude Monet and Australian Impressionism', a free exhibition running from Saturday 30 May to Sunday 25 October 2026 that places Claude Monet’s 'Haystacks, midday' (1890) in dialogue with works from the gallery’s own collection by Australian plein air painters. The exhibition is on view in Geelong during the gallery’s 130th year and is described by the gallery as a Geelong Gallery exhibition.
The key loan in the display is Monet’s 'Haystacks, midday', on loan from the National Gallery of Australia through the Sharing the National Collection initiative. The work is shown alongside Australian Impressionist paintings that, according to the gallery, share Monet’s interest in light, weather and seasonal change. The exhibition text notes that many of the Australian artists represented played a key role in the development of Australian Impressionism.
Monet’s 'Haystacks, midday' belongs to the artist’s celebrated series of wheat-stack paintings made near his property at Giverny, outside Paris. Geelong Gallery describes the series as one long revered for the range of light and weather conditions it portrays. In the exhibition, the French painting is presented in relation to Australian works that explore similar atmospheric effects, bringing attention to shared approaches across two regional contexts.
The gallery says the exhibition draws on works from its collection by late-19th and early-20th-century Australian plein air painters. The installation is designed to show how artists in both France and Australia were attentive to changes in natural light and to the appearance of the landscape under different conditions. Rather than separating the traditions, the exhibition sets them in visual conversation.
Alongside the exhibition itself, Geelong Gallery has programmed a free floortalk on Wednesday 19 August 2026, from 12.30pm to 1.15pm. Led by Assistant Director, Curatorial and exhibition curator Lisa Sullivan, the session will tour 'Milestones in Collecting—130th Anniversary Exhibition' and 'Claude Monet and Australian Impressionism', focusing on the stories behind key acquisitions in the gallery’s collection and on the relationship between light, place and artistic exchange.
The exhibition sits within a broader season at Geelong Gallery that also includes 'Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel, Art Dealer Among the Artists', but the gallery presents 'Claude Monet and Australian Impressionism' as a separate free-entry exhibition. The gallery is open daily from 10am to 5pm at Little Malop Street in Geelong, and the Monet display continues until 25 October 2026.
