Enjoy a summer’s evening of colourful talks associated with Monet and the Impressionists.
5.30pm–6.20pm: Join David Maskill, Senior Lecturer in Art History at Victoria University of Wellington, for an insightful floortalk about the representation of the seasons in Monet’s art. Visa Platinum Gallery, Level 4. Free with exhibition entry fee.
David Maskill is Senior Lecturer and Programme Director of Art History at Victoria University of Wellington. He is a specialist in French 18th-century art and the history of prints. He has contributed a series of entries to the forthcoming book Art at Te Papa.
6.30pm–7.20pm: In ‘Monet in the salons – Proust, Polignac and other dragons’, Theatre director Elric Hooper discusses the influence of Monet and his art on the literature of Proust and the salons of Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In Proust's great novel, Remembrance of Things Past, the character Elstir is generally believed to be based on Monet. As Proust moved through the great salons of Paris in the era known as the Belle Epoque, he saw how the discerning members of fashionable society came to acquire works by Monet even if they did not fully appreciate them. Winnaretta Singer, the sewing machine heiress – who became the Princesse de Polignac, one of the great patronesses of the arts – owned an important clutch of Monet's canvases. This is Monet among the lilies of the gentry, not the lilies of the water gardens of Giverny.
Watch this discussion on Youtube:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Elric Hooper
Elric Hooper studied for his MA in English at Canterbury University, and then spent two years at the city’s Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. His professional career began at the world-famous Old Vic in London. He appeared there for three seasons and worked as actor and assistant to Franco Zeffirelli in his award-winning Romeo and Juliet. Thereafter he worked as a performer, director, and teacher in America, Scandinavia, Germany, France, and Britain. He returned to New Zealand in 1975 and was artistic director of The Court Theatre from 1979 to 2000.
Hooper was awarded an MBE in 1990. Since 2000, he has been freelancing in Australia, New Zealand, America, and UK.
7.30–8.15pm: Round off your evening with café-style music from Trio Musette.
Find out more about the exhibition at www.tepapa.govt.nz/monet