Anna-Maria Kellen Lecture

Facing Mortality in Gardens along the Seine

Claude Monet painted some of his most luminous water lily canvases in his gardens at Giverny, not far away from the front in WWI, with gunfire, cannon, and ambulances within earshot. Fifty years later, just down the Seine at Vétheuil, Joan Mitchell preferred the yellows of dying sunflowers as she painted in the wake of loss. Fast-forward another fifty years, and Ja’Tovia Gary meditated on anti-Black violence as she filmed in Monet’s gardens at Giverny. How did these artists fold notions of time — the evolving time of gardens, the breakage of sudden death — into their works? Based on artist interviews, archival research, and years of close looking, Rachel Cohen’s illustrated talk allows viewers to see close up the remarkable reverberations among these three artists at work.