Monet’s masterpiece comes to Geelong Gallery
Geelong Gallery is delighted to announce the display of Claude Monet’s Meules, milieu du jour [Haystacks, midday] 1890. An exceptional destination painting on loan from the National Gallery of Australia.
This extraordinary work arrives as part of the National Gallery’s Sharing the National Collection initiative, which enables audiences across regional Australia to experience major works from the national collection on long-term display.
The presentation of Monet’s Haystacks, midday at Geelong Gallery marks an extraordinary cultural moment and one that aligns with the Gallery’s own story. Our very first acquisition, Frederick McCubbin’s A bush burial (1890), was purchased through public subscription and remains a cornerstone of the Collection. McCubbin, a founding figure of the Heidelberg School of Australian Impressionism, helped to shape a proud, modern identity for Australia. As Geelong Gallery approaches its 130th anniversary in 2026, the arrival of Monet’s Haystacks is especially fitting.
In 1890, Monet purchased his home at Giverny, where he began the celebrated Haystacks series. These stacks of wheat, tightly thatched for protection against the weather, stood in a field behind the artist’s house at Giverny, a village 60 kilometres from central Paris. From the late summer of 1890 until winter 1891, Claude Monet painted these haystacks at least 25 times. It was the changing effects of light, rather than the stacks themselves, that fascinated him. He faced a dilemma: the more he focused on fleeting atmospheric effects, the longer and more involved his painting process became.
The opportunity to view Haystacks, midday in Geelong offers local audiences an encounter with one of art history’s most influential painters.
Claude Monet’s Haystacks, midday will be on display at Geelong Gallery from 21 November for a two-year period.
Geelong Gallery warmly thanks Federal Minister for the Arts, The Hon Tony Burke MP and the Australian Government, alongside Dr Nick Mitzevich, Director of the National Gallery, for making this loan possible. Geelong Gallery is excited to share Monet’s popular haystacks painting with our visitors over the next two-year period through the Sharing the National Collection Program.
Humphrey Clegg, Geelong Gallery Director & CEO says: ‘Impressionism has played a major role in the history of Geelong Gallery. Our community founded the Gallery’s Collection through the purchase of a much-loved and now nationally significant Australian Impressionist painting, Frederick McCubbin’s A bush burial 1890. As we celebrate our 130th anniversary in 2026, we are delighted to be able to loan Claude Monet’s famous Meules, milieu du jour 1890 to inspire the Geelong community in the same way the French Impressionists inspired their Australian counterparts more than a century ago. I encourage all Victorians to come and see this iconic work.’
-ENDS-
This work of art is on long term loan from the National Gallery of Australia with support from the Australian Government as part of Sharing the National Collection.
