Snow Effect at Argenteuil
Framed: 28 1/2 × 32 1/2 × 3 1/8 inches (72.39 × 82.55 × 7.94 cm)
- 127
Probably 4me Exposition de peinture par M. Bracquemond--Mme Bracquemond—M. Caillebotte—M. Cals—Mlle Cassatt—MM. Degas—Forain—Lebourg—Monet—Pissarro—Feu Piette—Rouart—H. Somm—Tillot et Zandomenighi, 28 avenue de l’Opéra, Paris, April 10-May 11, 1879, no. 159, as Effet de neige (1875) à Argenteuil.
Haagsche Kunstkring; Tentoonstelling van schilderijen en beeldhouwwerken
van werkende leden der 1ste afdeeling en van werken van Claude Monet, Renoir,
Sisley en C. Pissarro,
The Hague, The Netherlands, October 8-November 6, 1893, no. 46, as Argenteuil (effet de neige.).
Exposition triennale de Beaux-arts de Gand 1895, Ghent, Belgium, September 1-October 28, 1895, no. 449, as Argenteuil. Effet de neige.
Oak Hall Exhibition, Oak Hall, Kansas City, MO, October 5-9, 1927, no cat., as Silvered Effect of Snow.
Memorial Exhibition of the Paintings from the Laura Nelson Kirkwood Collection, The Nelson- Atkins Museum of Arts, Kansas City, MO, opened November 18, 1934, no cat.
Masterpiece of the Month, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Arts, Kansas City, MO, October 1937, as View of Argentueille [sic].
Fine Arts Festival, Allyn Art Gallery, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, February 26-March 10, 1956, no. 10, as View of Argentueille [sic] and View of Argentueil.
Impressionist Paintings, Roberson Center for the Arts and Sciences, Binghamton, NY, October 21-November 18, 1956, no cat.
“One Hundred Years of Impressionism:” A Tribute to Durand-Ruel; A Loan Exhibition For the Benefit of the New York University Art Collection, Wildenstein, New York, April 2-May 9, 1970, no. 34, as Vue d’Argenteuil, Neige.
City Views, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, May 31-July 10, 1983, no. 38B, as View of Argenteuil.
Impressionism: Selections From Five American Museums, The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, November 4-December 31, 1989; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, January 27-March 25, 1990; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 21-June 17, 1990; Saint Louis Art Museum, July 14-September 9, 1990; The Toledo Museum of Art, OH, September 30-November 25, 1990, no. 50, as View of Argenteuil, Snow.
Claude Monet, Musée d’art moderne, Liège, Belgium, March 12-May 31, 1992, no. 5, as Vue d’Argenteuil, sous la neige.
Impressionists in Winter: Effets de Neige, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D. C., September 19, 1998-January 3, 1999; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, January 30-May 2, 1999, no. 10, as View of Argenteuil—Snow.
Monet and Japan, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, March 9-June 11, 2001; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, July 7- September 16, 2001, no. 9, as View of Argenteuil, snow.
Gli impressionisti e la neve: La Francia e l'Europa, Promotrice delle Belle Arti, Turin, Italy, November 27, 2004-April 25, 2005, no. 118, as Veduta di Argenteuil, neve.
Claude Monet painted this view from the upstairs window of the house he rented in Argenteuil in the 1870s. Originally a small town on the Seine River, Argenteuil quickly became an industrialized suburb after the 1851 expansion of the Western Railway line that connected it to Paris.
This painting records travelers trudging to and from Argenteuil’s pink railroad station after a surprisingly large snowfall. The darkly clad, silhouetted figures and the use of violet and lavender reveal the influence of Japanese ukiyo-e (floating world) woodcut prints, which Monet fervently admired and collected.
Probably purchased from the artist at his sale, Tableaux et Aquarelles par Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, A. Renoir, A. Sisley, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 24, 1875, lot 2, as effet de neige, by Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922), Paris, 1875-August 25, 1891 [1];
Purchased from Paul Durand-Ruel, Paris, by Durand-Ruel et Cie, Paris, stock no. 1323, as Argenteuil, effet de neige, 1891-May 21, 1896 [2];
Purchased from Durand-Ruel, Paris, by William Rockhill Nelson (1841-1915), Kansas City, MO, May 21, 1896-April 13, 1915;
To his wife, Ida Nelson (née Houston, 1853-1921), Kansas City, MO, 1915-October 6, 1921;
By descent to her daughter, Laura Kirkwood (née Nelson, 1883-1926), Kansas City, MO, 1921-February 27, 1926;
Inherited by her husband, Irwin Kirkwood (1878-1927), Kansas City, MO, 1926-August 29, 1927;
Laura Nelson Kirkwood Residuary Trust, Kansas City, MO, 1927-June 27, 1944 [3];
Gift of the Laura Nelson Kirkwood Residuary Trust to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1944.
NOTES:
[1] It is very likely that Paul Durand-Ruel purchased this painting from Claude Monet at his March 24, 1875 sale, where he is listed as the purchaser of three other Argenteuil snow scenes. See Merete Bodelsen, “Early Impressionist Sales 1874-94 in the light of some unpublished ‘procès-verbaux’,” The Burlington Magazine 110, no. 783 (June 1968): 333, 335. If that is the case, then the painting was probably in the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition, as cat. no. 159, Effet de neige (1875) à Argenteuil, which was lent by M. Durand-Ruel. See Catalogue de la 4me Exposition de peinture par M. Bracquemond--Mme Bracquemond—M. Caillebotte—M. Cals—Mlle Cassatt—MM. Degas—Forain—Lebourg—Monet—Pissarro—Feu Piette—Rouart—H. Somm—Tillot et Zandomenighi, 28 Avenue de l’opéra, Paris, April 10-May 11, 1879.
[2] See email from Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel et Cie, Paris, to Nicole Myers, NAMA, January 11, 2016, NAMA curatorial file.
[3] As early as 1927, art advisor to the NAMA trustees, R. A. Holland, noted the painting in the contents of Oak Hall, Nelson’s mansion, as one to keep for the budding museum’s collection. Letter from Fred C. Vincent, Laura Nelson Kirkwood Trustee, to Herbert V. Jones, NAMA Trustee, December 28, 1927, NAMA curatorial files. However, the painting was not given to the museum until Laura Nelson Kirkwood’s household goods and personal effects were finally dispersed in 1944.
Probably Catalogue des Tableaux et aquarelles par Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, A. Renoir, A. Sisley (Paris: Hôtel Drouot, March 24, 1875), 7, as Effet de neige.
Probably Catalogue de la 4me Exposition de peinture par M. Bracquemond--Mme Bracquemond—M. Caillebotte—M. Cals—Mlle Cassatt—MM. Degas—Forain—Lebourg—Monet—Pissarro—Feu Piette—Rouart—H. Somm—Tillot et Zandomenighi, 28 Avenue de l’opéra, Paris, April 10-May 11, 1879, exh. cat. (Paris: Morris, père et fils, imprimerie, 1879), 12 [repr. in Theodore Reff, ed., Modern Art in Paris: Two-Hundred Catalogues of the Major Exhibitions Reproduced in Facsimile in Forty-Seven Volumes, vol. 23, Impressionist Group Exhibitions (New York: Garland, 1981), unpaginated], as Effet de neige (1875) à Argenteuil.
Haagse Kunstkring; Tentoonstelling van schilderijen en beeldhouwwerken van werkende leden der 1ste afdeeling en van werken van Claude Monet, Renoir, Sisley en C. Pissarro, exh. cat. (The Hague, The Netherlands: Mouton, 1893), 7, as Argenteuil (effet de neige).
Exposition triennale de Beaux-arts de Gand 1895, exh. cat. (Ghent, Belgium: Salon de Gand, 1895), 95, as Argenteuil. Effet de neige.
Possibly Gustave Geffroy, Claude Monet, sa vie, son œuvre, vol. 1 (Paris: Les Éditions G. Crès et Cie, 1924), 156, 213.
“Laura Nelson-Kirkwood,” Kansas City Star 46, no. 164 (February 28, 1926): 1A.
“Oak Hall Open Wednesday,” Kansas City Star 48, no. 15 (October 2, 1927): 2A, as Silvered Effect of Snow.
Possibly Paul V. Beckley, “Art News,” Kansas City Journal-Post, no. 193 (December 17, 1933): 2C.
“Art,” Kansas City Star 55, no. 62 (November 18, 1934): 12A.
“Special Lecture Announcement,” News Flashes 1, no. 3 (The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) (November 18-December 1, 1934): 1.
M[inna] K. P[owell], “Art: Paintings from Oak Hall Viewed by Public for First Time—A Large Ribera, Several Interesting Dutch Canvases, Portraits of the English School and a Few French Moderns Are Shown,” Kansas City Times 97, no. 277 (November 19, 1934): 8.
“Masterpiece of the Month,” News Flashes (The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 3, no. 10 (October 1, 1937): 2, as View of Argenteuil.
M[inna] K. P[owell],
“In Gallery and Studio: News and Views of the Week in Art,” Kansas City Star 58, no. 14 (October 1,
1937): 26, as View of Argenteuill [sic]
and View of Argenteuil.
“Nelson Gallery Masterpiece of Month,” Kansas City Journal-Post, no. 11 (October 3, 1937): 3B, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil.
“Music and Musicians: Concerts for Clubs,” Kansas City Star 64, no. 205 (April 9, 1944): 15C.
Fine Arts Festival, exh. cat. (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, 1956), unpaginated, as View of Argentueille [sic].
Ross E. Taggart, “Kansas City Art,” Library Journal 82, no. 12 (June 15, 1957): 1596.
Henry C. Haskell, “Scanning the Arts,” Kansas City Star 85, no. 157 (February 21, 1965): 1D.
Probably Merete Bodelsen, “Early Impressionist Sales 1874-94 in the light of some unpublished ‘procès-verbaux’,” The Burlington Magazine 110, no. 783 (June 1968): 333, 335, as Effet de neige.
“One Hundred Years of Impressionism:” A Tribute to Durand-Ruel; A Loan Exhibition For the Benefit of the New York University Art Collection, exh. cat. (New York: Wildenstein, 1970), unpaginated, (repro.), as Vue d’Argenteuil, Neige.
Donald Hoffmann, “A Beautiful Monet is Acquired By Nelson Gallery,” Sunday Star Magazine of the Kansas City Star, supplement, Kansas City Star 93, no. 126 (January 21, 1973): S12, as View of Argenteuil.
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 162, 258, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil.
Henry C. Haskell, “Gallery Rules and Later Gifts: Nelson Had His Reasons,” Kansas City Star 94, no. 118 (January 13, 1974): E1.
Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonne, vol. 1, 1840-1881: Peintures (Lausanne: La Bibliothèque des Arts, 1974), no. 358, pp. 266-67, 452, 460, (repro.), as Vue d’Argenteuil, neige.
Joel Isaacson, Claude Monet: Observation and Reflection (Oxford: Phaidon, 1978), 20, 97, 207, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil, Snow and Vue d’Argenteuil, neige.
Robert H. Terte, “The Phenomenal Nelson Gallery,” Antiques World 1, no. 3 (January 1979): 46.
John M. Merriman, ed., French Cities in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1981), 155, 269n14, as View of Argenteuil, Winter.
Ross E. Taggart and Roger B. Ward, City Views, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 14, as View of Argenteuil.
T. J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), x, 194, 303n51, as Vue d’Argenteuil, neige.
“Education Insights: Lunch Break. The Impressionist Landscape,” Calendar of Events (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (June 1985): unpaginated, as View of Argenteuil.
Probably Charles S. Moffett, The New Painting: Impressionism 1874-1886, exh. cat. (Geneva: Richard Burton SA, 1986), 259, 269, as Effet de neige (1875) à Argenteuil.
“Museums to Sports, KC Has It All,” American Water Works Association Journal 79, no. 4 (April 1987): 133.
Donald Hoffmann, “Out of the dark and into the light: Pissarro landscape ‘found’ at Nelson,” Kansas City Star 109, no. 7 (September 25, 1988): 1D, as View of Argenteuil.
“New at the Nelson:
Museum ‘Discovers’ Pissarro Painting,” Calendar
of Events (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (October 1988): 2, as View of Argenteuil, Snow.
Marc S. Gerstein, Impressionism: Selections from Five American Museums, exh. cat. (New York: Hudson Hills, 1989), 12, 36, 90, 122, 123, 178, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil, Snow.
Toni Wood, “The impressionists broke all the rules: Modern viewers love impressionism,” Kansas City Star 110, no. 184 (April 15, 1990): H4, as View of Argenteuil, Snow.
Toni Wood, “Expatriate paintings in Midwest: Works took diverse routes to exhibit,” Kansas City Star 110, no. 233 (June 3, 1990): G5, as View of Argenteuil, Snow.
Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Catalogue raisonné, vol. 5, Supplément aux peintures, dessins, pastels, index (Lausanne: Wildenstein Institute, 1991), no. 358, pp. 29, 292, 330, 333, 335, as Vue d’Argenteuil, Neige.
John Dixon Hunt, Gardens and the Picturesque: Studies in the History of Landscape Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), xiii, 254-55, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil (from the Artist’s Rented House).
Françoise Dumont, ed., Liège 92: Claude Monet, exh. cat. (Liège, Belgium: Salle Saint-Georges, 1992), 58-59, 132, (repro.), as Vue d’Argenteuil, sous la neige.
Sandro Sproccati, Monet (Edison, NJ: Chartwell Books, 1992), 117, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil, Snow, Argenteuil, January or February 1875.
Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 1933-1993 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 23, 34n1, as View of Argenteuil—Snow.
Bernard Denvir, The Chronicle of Impressionism: An Intimate Diary of the Lives and World of the Great Artists (London: Thames and Hudson, 1993), 279.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills, 1993), 12, as View of Argenteuil, Snow.
Kristie C. Wolferman, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Culture Comes to Kansas City (Columbia, MO: Columbia University of Missouri Press, 1993), 186-88, as View of Argenteuil, Snow.
Mary Anne
Staniszewski, Believing is Seeing:
Creating the Culture of Art (New York: Penguin, 1995), 183, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil, Snow.
“Music Teachers National Association National Convention, March 23-27, 1996, Kansas City, Missouri,” American Music Teacher 45, no. 4 (February-March 1996): 23.
Probably Ruth Berson, The New Painting, Impressionism, 1874-1886 (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1996), 1:206, 221, 2:115-16, 288, as Effet de neige (1875) à Argenteuil.
Daniel Wildenstein, Monet or The Triumph of Impressionism (Cologne: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 1996), no. 358, pp. 114, 479.
Daniel Wildenstein, Monet, vol. 2, Catalogue Raisonné-Werkverzeichnis: Nos. 1-968 (Cologne: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 1996), no. 358, p. 148, (repro.), as Vue d’Argenteuil, neige, View of Argenteuil, Snow, and Blick auf Argenteuil im Schnee.
“Behind the Scenes: Several European Paintings to Travel,” Newsletter (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (October 1997): 4, as View of Argenteuil Snow.
Alice Thorson, “Traveling treasures: Some gallery favorites to go on tour as Nelson gears up for expansion,” The Kansas City Star (December 13, 1997): E1, as View of Argenteuil Snow.
Charles S. Moffett et al., Impressionists in Winter: Effets de Neige, exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.: Phillips Collection, 1998), 32, 98-99, 102, 208, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil—Snow.
“Behind the Scenes: Museum’s European Paintings in Demand,” Newsletter (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (October 2000): 4, as View of Argenteuil: Snow.
Lynne Knight, Snow Effects: Poems on Impressionists in Winter (Concord, CA: Small Poetry, 2000), 20, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil, Snow.
Virginia Spate and Gary Hickey, Monet and Japan, exh. cat. (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2001), 23, 86, 195, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil, snow and Vue d’Argenteuil, neige.
Robert L. Herbert, From Monet to Léger: Essays in Social Art History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 13, 180n15, as View of Argenteuil, Winter.
Marco Goldin, Gli impressionisti e la neve: La Francia e l’Europa (Conegliano, Italy: Linea d’ombra Libri, 2004), 256, 288, 379-380, (repro.), as Veduta di Argenteuil, neve.
Mary Tompkins Lewis, ed., Critical Readings in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: An Anthology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 133-34, 145n50, 344, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil—Snow.
Joseph Baillio, Claude Monet (1840-1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff, exh. cat. (New York: Wildenstein, 2007), 111, as Rue Saint-Denis: neige à Argenteuil.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 118, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil—Snow.
Mary Mathews Gedo, Monet and his Muse: Camille Monet in the Artist’s Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 155.
Daniel Wildenstein, Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism (Cologne: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 2010), no. 358, p. 114.
Alice Thorson, “Three Times the Wonder: Claude Monet’s later work reflects his obsession with the color and reflections in his water garden,” Kansas City Star Magazine, supplement, Kansas City Star 131, no. 198 (April 3, 2011): S9, as View of Argenteuil-Snow.
Possibly Jean-François Demeure, Monet en Creuse: Le printemps d'une méthode (Limoges, France: Éditions Culture et Patrimoine en Limousin, 2011), 38, as Effet de neige à Argenteuil.
Simon Kelly and April M. Watson, Impressionist France: Visions of Nation from
Le Gray to Monet, exh. cat. (St.
Louis, MO: St. Louis Art Museum, 2013), 47, 212, 241, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil—Snow.
Probably Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, eds., Paul Durand-Ruel: Memoirs of the First Impressionist Art Dealer (1831-1922) (Paris: Flammarion, 2014), 119, 266n131, as Effet de neige.
Nina Siegal, “Upon Closer Review, Credit Goes to Bosch,” New York Times 165, no. 57130 (February 2, 2016): C5.
“Nelson-Atkins to unveil renovated Bloch Galleries of European Art in winter 2017,” artdaily.org (July 20, 2016): unpaginated.
Catherine Futter et al., Bloch Galleries: Highlights from the Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2016), 60, (repro.), as View of Argenteuil—Snow.
Ross King, Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), 120.
Menachem Wecker, “Jewish Philanthropist Establishes Kansas City as Cultural Mecca,” The Forward (March 14, 2017): http://forward.com/culture/365264/jewish-philanthropist-establishes-kansas-city-as-cultural-mecca/ [repr. in Menachem Wecker, “Kansas City Collection Is A Chip Off the Old Bloch,” Forward (March 17, 2017): 20-22], as View of Argenteuil—Snow.
Richard Thomson, Monet and Architecture, exh. cat. (London: National Gallery Company, 2018), 218.
Glynnis Stevenson, “Claude Monet, Snow Effect at Argenteuil, 1875, and Snow Effect at Argenteuil, 1875,” catalogue entry, and Diana M. Jaskierny, “Claude Monet, Snow Effect at Argenteuil, 1875 (44-41/3)” technical entry in Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, ed., French Paintings, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2021), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.628.5407.
