First Impressionists, second chances: priceless art collection returns to Australia

From Monet’s famous water lilies to a landscape by van Gogh, a collection of more than 100 Impressionist paintings has returned to Australia after Covid lockdowns cut short their initial show.

NGV director Tony Ellwood, left, and Museum of Fine Arts Boston incoming director Pierre Terjanian at NGV International, Melbourne, alongside Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s painting Grand Canal, Venice 1881. Picture: Eugene Hyland

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

A collection of French Impressionist paintings considered one of the best in the world has ­returned to Victoria’s state gallery after becoming a casualty of one of the world’s longest Covid-19 lockdowns.

The National Gallery of Victoria on Friday opens an exhibition of more than 100 paintings on loan from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, by artists including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas and Vincent van Gogh.

NGV director Tony Ellwood said the Covid-mandated closure of the exhibition in 2021 was “a very sad farewell to what people were describing at the time as one of the best shows they’d seen”.

Detail: Claude Monet’s Grand Canal, Venice, 1908, bequest of Alexander Cochrane. Picture: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

“There we were, the only venue in the world getting one of the best collections of its type. It broke our hearts because we thought we’d never see it again.”

To bring the works rarely seen in Australia back to Melbourne after four years took “an army of people from both sides,” Mr Ellwood said.

To entice visitors and honour the collection’s origin, an entirely fresh exhibition design was devised to recreate “the Bostonian mansions where the works would have resided before they were gifted to the Boston Gallery”.

The museum in Massachusetts is home to the collection as Bostonians at the time were travelling to France and acquiring Impressionist paintings contempor­aneously to their creation.

The incoming director of MFA Boston, Pierre Terjanian, said the breadth and depth of Impressionists in the collection provides the museum with “the caliber of works that deserve to be seen and to travel”.

Detail: Claude Monet’s The water lily pond, 1900. Picture: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Detail: Claude Monet’s Meadow with poplars c. 1875. Picture: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

“It is an honour and privilege, but also perhaps a moral obligation,” Mr Terjanian said of sharing the works with an Australian audience.

“The magic of displaying art is that there’s a chemistry that takes place and it is unique to place, time, and the eyes of the beholder.

“So we’re really excited to hear what the response is going to be from the visitors.”

From the perspective of the NGV’s director, the appeal of these artists endures as “it’s just one of those key moments in art history that everybody feels some connection to”.

This connection is most evident to Mr Ellwood in the show’s final room, containing 16 paintings by Monet including his world-famous water lilies.

“People have tears in their eyes when they’ve walked in, it’s that beautiful,” he said.