Marie Selby Botanical Gardens to showcase Pop Art icon Roy Lichtenstein’s take on Monet’s Garden

In his late career, Roy Lichtenstein’s famed primary colors and comic book imagery gave way to subtler explorations of color, light and materials. However, his interest in reinterpreting the work of celebrated artists remained. In a new indoor and outdoor exhibition, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus will showcase the legendary pop artist’s screen prints based on Monet’s world-famous paintings of water lilies and haystacks. Roy Lichtenstein: Monet’s Garden Goes Pop! will be on view exclusively at Selby Gardens from February 14-June 27, 2021.

Lichtenstein’s rarely seen Water Lilies with Reflections provides an unexpected homage to a staple of the public imagination – Claude Monet’s paintings of his garden and home. Lichtenstein, who made his name reinterpreting both Pop culture and the work of established artists, used screen printing to create his Water Liliesseries, choosing to print on metal and introduce reflections into his work. The series will be on view in the Museum of Botany & the Arts along with photographs of Lichtenstein at work and at home. The outdoor spaces at Selby Gardens will be transformed – through a Pop Art lens – into Monet’s famed gardens at Giverny. 

“We are excited to give our gardens the Monet treatment, with an innovative pop art twist,” says Jennifer Rominiecki, president and CEO of Selby Gardens. “Our guests will immerse themselves in Lichtenstein’s interpretation of Monet for a dynamic experience in our galleries and gardens.” 

“Lichtenstein’s Water Lilies series is rarely seen, and yet it is a wonderful reflection of how his artistic viewpoint evolved in his late career,” said Dr. Carol Ockman, Curator-at-Large for Selby Gardens and Robert Sterling Clark Professor of Art History Emerita at Williams College. “With the inclusion of several of his Haystacks from 1969, visitors also will be able to see how Monet’s work inspired Lichtenstein to invent techniques to render the peerless natural effects of his precursor.” 

An avid gardener, Monet once said, “My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.”  As part of Roy Lichtenstein: Monet’s Garden Goes Pop!, the horticultural team at Selby Gardens will transform the 15-acre outdoor spaces into Monet’s famed gardens at Giverny with a Pop Art perspective. The garden design will include iconic elements of Monet’s garden, including the green Japanese bridge.

The immersive Jean & Alfred Goldstein Exhibition Series explores the use of nature and flowers by major artists. The current Jean & Alfred Goldstein Exhibition is Salvador Dalí: Gardens of the Mind.  These world-renown works of art seen in a garden setting awaken new comparisons in viewers’ minds.

Selby Gardens will present Lichtenstein and Monet-themed lectures, performances, family programs, special tours, school curricula and additional programs that complement the exhibition. A full schedule of events will be available later this year at www.selby.org.