Garden at Giverny

Garden at Giverny presents a sunny corner of a garden in which flowers are massed against trees and a modest stone building. A sun-dappled path meanders across the foreground, separating the viewer from a dense expanse of foliage topped by crimson, white, pink, and periwinkle blossoms. Breck portrayed these forms in vigorous dashes and spots of paint built up on the surface of the canvas. He presents not the details of the scene but the effect of the garden’s profusion of color and texture virtually sparkling under a bright overhead sun. The stone building in the right distance provides a solid anchor for the feathery mass of plants crowding the foreground and balances the dominant form of the tall flowers with large white blossoms, possibly peonies, in the left foreground.

Garden at Giverny has long been thought to be one of a group of garden scenes painted by Breck in Giverny, a rural village in the province of Normandy, France, during the five years in which he worked there intermittently. The artist arrived in Giverny in 1887, one of the first of numerous Americans who turned the sleepy hamlet into a lively artists’ colony between the mid-1880s and the 1910s. Giverny’s most famous resident, French painter Claude Monet (1840–1926), inspired many of these visiting artists to experiment with impressionism, the use of distinct strokes or spots of bright color to capture the vibrating effects of natural light and of movement. One of the few Americans with whom Monet worked directly, Breck drew inspiration from some of his mentor’s favorite subjects at the time, notably gardens, fields of flowers, and haystacks.

Breck even painted in Monet’s own garden, as the titles of such works as Garden at Giverny (In Monet’s Garden) (TF 1988.22) announce. Garden at Giverny is closely related to that work in technique, but its exact subject is unidentified. In addition to Monet's garden, the garden at the Giverny home of another member of the village’s expatriate community, Boston painter Lilla Cabot Perry, has been proposed as the subject of Garden at Giverny. Perry’s stay in Giverny began in 1889, thus overlapping Breck’s by two years, and she soon became a friend of Monet and a champion of both his art and Breck’s. It has also been suggested that the painting was completed during the summer of 1890 when Breck worked in the United States. While the precise location of Garden at Giverny is unknown, it remains a definitive statement of the artist’s wholehearted embrace of impressionism, of which he was one of America’s earliest adherents.

A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 21–June 21, 1987. [exh. cat.]

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Americans at Home and Abroad, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 6–29, 1987.

American Painters in France, 1830–1930, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 14–September 3, 1989. [exh. cat.]

American Impressionism: Masterworks from Public and Private Collections in the United States, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, Lugano-Castagnola, Switzerland (organizer). Venue: Villa Favorita, Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, Lugano-Castagnola, Switzerland, July 22–October 28, 1990. [exh. cat.]

Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865–1915 (Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865–1915), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, June 1–November 1, 1992; April 1–October 31, 1993; April 1–October 30, 1994; April 1–October 31, 1995. [exh. cat.]

American Artists and the French Experience, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 12–August 27, 1997.

American Artists and the Paris Experience, 1880–1910, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 22, 1997–March 8, 1998.

Giverny: une impression américaine (Giverny, An American Impression), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–November 1, 1998.

Giverny: intérieurs, extérieurs (Giverny: Inside and Out), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2000.

Permanent collection installation, Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–July 1, 2001.

The French Experience: American Artists at Giverny, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, July 27–October 20, 2002.

Giverny en fleurs (Giverny in Bloom), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, March 2–November 30, 2003.

French Impressionism and Boston: Masterworks from the Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts (organizers), Venues: Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, November 19, 2005–March 5, 2006.

Impressions: American Painters in France 1860–1935, Naples Museum of Art, Philharmonic Center for the Arts, Naples, Florida (organizer). Venue: Naples Museum of Art, Philharmonic Center for the Arts, Naples, Florida, January 18–May 13, 2007. [exh. cat.]

In Monet's Garden: The Lure of Giverny, Columbus Museum of Art (Organizer). Venues: Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, October 12, 2007–January 20, 2008; Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, France, February 12–May 11, 2008. [exh cat.] Monet and the Artists of Giverny: The Beginning of American Impressionism, The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan with the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venues: Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Kitakyushu, Japan, October 9–November 28, 2010; The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan, December 7, 2010–February 17, 2011; The Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art, Okayama, Japan, February 25–April 10, 2011. [exh. cat.]

Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio and Royal Academy of Arts, London, England (organizers). Venues: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, October 11, 2015–January 5, 2016; Royal Academy of Arts, London, United Kingdom, January 30–April 20, 2016. (exhibited in Cleveland, Ohio) [exh. cat.]

Americans Abroad: Landscape and Artistic Exchange, 1800–1920 (穿越大洋的艺术 | 美国印第安纳大学埃斯凯纳齐艺术博物馆藏19–20世纪风景画展)", Exhibition partnership between the Eskenazi Museum of Art (Indiana University) and the Tsinghua University Art Museum (organizers). Venue: Tsinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, China, September 21, 2018–March 17, 2019. [exh. cat.]

The Studio of Nature, 1860-1910: The Terra Collection in Context (L’atelier de la Nature, 1860-1910. Invitation à la Terra Collection). Terra Foundation for American Art with the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny (organizers). Venue: Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, France, September 12, 2020–January 3, 2021. [exh. cat. in French]

Atkinson, D. Scott et al. A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-132, p. 241 (color).

Corbin, Kathryn. John Leslie Breck, "American Impressionist." The Magazine Antiques 134 (November 1988): 1142-49. Pl. II (color).

Gerdts, William. American Impressionism: Masterworks from Public and Private Collections in the United States. (exh. cat., Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, Lugano-Castagnola, Switzerland). Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Eidolon/Benziger, 1990. Text p. 48; ill. no. 13, p. 49 (color).

Gerdts, William H. et al. Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865-1915. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text pp. 146-47; ill. no. 17, p. 153 (color).

Gerdts, William H. et al. Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865-1915. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text pp. 146-47; ill. no. 17, p. 153 (color).

Gerdts, William H. Monet's Giverny: An Impressionist Colony. New York: Abbeville Press, 1993. Text pp. 82, 84; pl. 75, p. 83 (color), p. 62 (color detail).

Joyes, Claire. The Taste of Giverny: At Home with Monet and the American Impressionists. Paris, France: Flammarion, 2000. Ill. p. 77 (color).

Mancoff, Debra N. Monet's Garden in Art. London, England: Frances Lincoln Limited, 2001. Ill. p. 80 (color).

Gerdts, William H. and David F. Setford. Impressions: Americans in France, 1860–1930 and Claude Monet: Giverny and the North of France. (exh. cat. Naples Museum of Art). Naples, Florida: Naples Museum of Art, 2007. Text pp. 16, 96 (checklist); ill. p. 38 (color).

Houston, Joe et al.  In Monet's Garden: Artists and the Lure of Giverny. (exh. cat., Columbus Museum of Art in association with Musée Marmottan Monet). London, England: Scala Publishers, 2007. Text pp. 57, 158 (checklist), ill. pl. 16, p. 70 (color).
Monet and the Artists of Giverny: The Beginning of American Impressionism. (exh. cat. Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, and The Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art). Fukuoka, Japan: The Nishinippon Shimbun, 2010. Text cat. no. 35, pp. 89 (in Japanese), 185 (in English); ill. p. 89 (color), opposite p. 89 (detail) (color).

Dumas, Ann, et al. Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse (exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art). London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2015. Cat. 45, p. 146 (color).

Tsinghua University Art Museum. Americans Abroad: Landscape and Artistic Exchange, 1800-1920. (exh. cat. Tsinghua University Art Museum) Beijing: Tsinghua University, 2018. Text p. 124; ill. p. 125 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine and Valerie Reis. The Studio of Nature, 1860-1910: The Terra Collection in Context. (exh. cat, Terra Foundation for American Art with the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny). Paris, France: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2020.  Pl. 57, p. 131 (color).