Supported by

As part of National Treasures: Monet in York ‘The Water-Lily Pond’, we’re pleased to be offering a wide range of talks, events and workshops.

—

Programme of workshops and activities

Follow the links below to find out more about the individual workshops and to book tickets.

All workshop tickets include entry to the Monet in York exhibition and our wider permanent collections.

Saturday 25 May – Yoga at York Art Gallery – SOLD OUT

Saturday 1 June – Japanese Woodblock Printing – SOLD OUT

Saturday 8 June – Open Air Landscape Drawing

Saturday 22 June – Capture Monet’s Water Lilies in Watercolour – SOLD OUT

Saturday 29 June – Yoga at York Art Gallery – SOLD OUT

Saturday 13 July – Open Air Landscape Drawing

Saturday 20 July – Ikebana Inspired Floral Design Workshop – SOLD OUT

Saturday 27 July – Yoga at York Art Gallery – SOLD OUT

Saturday 10 August – Open Air Landscape Drawing

Saturday 17 August – Capture Monet’s Water Lilies in Watercolour – SOLD OUT

Saturday 24 August – Capture Monet’s Water Lilies in Watercolour – EXTRA DATE ADDED

Saturday 31 August – Sound Bath at York Art Gallery

—

Monet In Conversation Programme
Select Thursdays at 2pm
No booking required, included in general admission

Academics from varied disciplines take Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond as a starting point in these half-hour gallery conversations about the artist’s connections with their research.  In conjunction with Humanities Research Centre, University of York, these talks are part of the Festival of Ideas. Please note each session will take place in front of the painting unless otherwise specified:

Thursday 30 May – Professor Michael White (History of Art) 
Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond: A View from Nowhere
Find out more

—

Thursday 6 June – Dr Jonathan Brockbank (English Literature) 
The Soil and Soul of France: Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond in Context
Find out more

—

Thursday 20 June – Dr Liz Haddon, Marianna Cortesi, Federico Pendenza and Laura Sutcliffe (Music)
Art as a creative springboard: from Monet to music
Find out more

—

Thursday 27 June – Dr Pablo Fernandez Velasco (Philosophy)
Light, air and atmosphere: philosophical lessons from Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond
Find out more

—

Thursday 4 July – Dr Thomas Houlton (Film & Literature)
“Fugitive colour” / “A daylong obsession”: Claude Monet, Derek Jarman and the Pursuit of Colour
Find out more
(Please note this session will take place in the Tempest Anderson Hall at the Yorkshire Museum, and includes a film showing of Jarman’s Blue touching on themes including HIV and Aids, suitable for age 15+) 

—

National Gallery Curator Talk
Dr Chris Riopelle, The Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings at the National Gallery, London
Monet’s ‘The Water-Lily Pond’  

Thursday 23 May, 2pm
Included in general admission

 The longest lived of the key French Impressionist masters, Claude Monet (1840-1926) was every bit as radical and inventive a painter at the end of life as in fearless youth. In his final years his principal – indeed, obsessive – subject was the lower of two gardens at his country estate at Giverny west of Paris. It was dominated by an arching Japanese bridge over a pond of water-lilies. For decades he explored with unending pleasure the ever-changing light conditions, advancing and retreating foliage and myriad reflections on the pond. This is a key early work in the series, executed just before the turn of the 20th century. The talk explores the surprising richness of the theme, Monet’s use of scale and canvas shape to invest meaning, and his flirtation with painterly abstraction, so influential on later generations of painters. 

 Christopher Riopelle is The Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings at the National Gallery, London. He has held curatorial positions at the J. Paul Getty Museum, California, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art and taught at the American College, Paris, New York University and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.  Recent exhibitions he has curated or co-curated include Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art (Minneapolis and London, 2015-16), Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art Market (Paris, London and Philadelphia, 2014-15), Forests, Rocks, Torrents: Norwegian and Swiss Landscapes from the Lunde Collection (London, 2011), Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light (London and Dublin, 2019), Gauguin Portraits (Ottawa and London, 2019-20) and Conversations with God: Matejko’s ‘Copernicus’ (2021). He is currently preparing the National Gallery’s major bicentenary exhibition Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers opening in September 2024.

—

A talk about York Art Gallery’s exhibition National Treasures: Monet in York, at Burnby Hall Gardens & Museum 

Monday 8 July
11am, 12 noon and 2pm
Included in general admission to Burnby Hall Gardens & Museum 
This event takes place at Burnby Hall Gardens & Museum, in the Burnby Hall Meeting Room

A reciprocal partnership event at Burnby Hall Gardens & Museum which will explore National Treasures: Monet in York for people visiting at the National Waterlily Collection. 

Hear more about how Monet’s well-known painting has shaped this exhibition and its associated programme from Head of Public Engagement, Curatorial and Collections, Dr Alexandra Woodall. Meet Garden Manager Steve Williams who will talk about how we have linked the indoor and outdoor spaces through planting a Monet-inspired wildflower meadow encouraging creativity and wellbeing in the Museum Gardens.

—

The National Waterlily Collection, a talk at York Art Gallery from Burnby Hall Gardens & Museum’s Estate Manager, Ian Murphy

Thursday 18 July
2pm
Included in general admission
This talk takes place at York Art Gallery in front of the Monet painting

Find out more about the national collection of waterlilies at nearby Burnby Hall Gardens & Museum in Pocklington, East Yorkshire with staff who manage the estate, and hear how the team care about the national collection of waterlilies there.

 

—

Search Search