Face Au Soleil : Un Astre Dans Les Arts

Exhibition at the Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris, 21 September 2022 - 29 January 2023;
at the Museum Barberini, Postdam, 25 February - 11 June 2023

On 13 November 1872, Claude Monet painted a view of the port in the mist from the window of his hotel in Le Havre. Exhibited two years later under the title Impression, soleil levant, the work inspired the critic Louis Leroy to coin the term Impressionists and gave its name to the group formed by Monet and his friends.

For this catalogue of the exhibition organised on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of this work by Monet, scientists from various backgrounds have been brought together to offer an overview of the evolution of human thought towards the sun. The book traces the representation of the sun in art, from Antiquity to the present day, through more than sixty works from international private and public collections. Among the artists featured are Dürer, Rubens, Turner, Pissarro, Signac, Munch, Sonia Delaunay, Joan Miró, Alexandre Calder and Vicky Colombet.