Conservation & Color: Monet’s Fishing Boats at Étretat

Take a close look at Monet's 1885 painting "Fishing Boats at Étretat" with Nicholas Dorman, SAM's Jane Lang Davis Chief Conservator. Dorman shares about the canvas, the colors, and the layers of revisions that makes SAM’s single Monet painting sing. As the inspiration for the "Monet at Étretat" exhibition at Seattle Art Museum, "Fishing Boats at Étretat" was closely examined and conserved, revealing much about the context of Monet's artistic development at this pivotal moment in his career. Learn all about advances in paint and the cumbersome process of plein air painting in 19th-century France in this video. One of the "Monet at Étretat" galleries is dedicated to Monet’s process and features an easel similar to one Monet would have used as well as the backs of two paintings. This demonstrates the physically demanding process Monet embarked on in painting outside, and the materials available to work with at the time. The exhibition features 10 paintings created by Monet and 12 works by other artists of his era, as well as other materials addressing the artist’s engagement with the fishing village of Étretat on the Normandy Coast of France in the mid-1880s. _ MONET AT ÉTRETAT Jul 1 – Oct 17, 2021 visitsam.org/monet