Le Jardin De Monet À Giverny : Histoire D'une Renaissance

Dead trees, swamps, brambles and weeds: this is what Gérald Van der Kemp discovers when he arrives at Giverny in 1974. Following the death of Michel Monet, the painter's property and the collection it housed were bequeathed to the Académie des beaux-arts.

The house, in a sad state of repair, was entrusted to Gérald Van der Kemp, former chief curator of the Château de Versailles, who found a new challenge here. With the help of the head gardener Gilbert Vahé, the dead trees were replaced, the flowerbeds were cleared of weeds, the Japanese bridge was rebuilt and the paths were widened to welcome visitors. All the flowerbeds were replanted using archival documents and Claude Monet's correspondence with his suppliers.

It is the story of this second life offered to the gardens of the painter of the Water Lilies that this book tells. It testifies to the masterly work carried out over more than forty years to reconstitute these key spaces of the artist's inspiration, thanks to numerous photographs, documents and archives.