Each oil painting on the walls of the large gallery at 7 Fairbank St. looks like a scene from an informal garden somewhere in England, full of light and color. The flowers in the foreground appear real enough to pick, while a haze of color fills the background. Actually, this is Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny, France. The artist, Suzan Osborn, has included a recognizable landmark in each painting—a bit of the house, a rose trellis, a bridge, a bench—all painted in “Monet’s green,” a distinctive, deep bluish-green shade. Osborn wants viewers to recognize whose garden this is and to realize she was actually painting in Monet’s garden and these scenes are her experience of being in that garden.
The exhibit is the latest in a series of art exhibitions sponsored by the Harvard Cultural Collaborative featuring Harvard artists. Called “The Light Too Bright to Look – in Monet’s Garden,” Osborn’s show opens Saturday, June 2, with a reception from 3 to 5 p.m. In addition to paintings of Monet’s garden, Osborn will display some of her earlier paintings in other rooms of the building. They’re all of gardens. In a recent interview with the Press, Osborn said she loves gardening and has always loved painting: “When I’m gardening, I’m painting, moving plants for color and line. When I’m painting, I’m gardening.”
“Monet’s Bridge with Wysteria Arch.” (Painting by Suzan Osborn)
Osborn started painting as a child. She still has the oil she did at the age of 8: a hummingbird at a flower, copied from a page in her dad’s Arizona Highways magazine. “The oil on the white cloud is about an inch thick,” she laughed. Her grandmother took her to France between junior and senior years of high school and Osborn fell in love with the art world. She particularly liked the impressionists and said she has always painted “with that palette, though using more studied brushstrokes.” Osborn never had an art lesson, and though she majored in art at William & Mary, she received no drawing or painting instruction.
Though initially mocked, impressionism came into its own in the 1870s and ’80s, and Monet, known as the father of impressionism, was financially successful in his own time. Then, for decades, the French impressionists’ popularity was overshadowed by new art movements, such as abstract expressionism. The impressionists were “rediscovered,” and in the late ’60s, Osborn read an article about how Monet’s garden, which had been pretty much untended since 1946, was being restored according to a 20-year plan. It opened to the public in 1980, and it became Osborn’s dream to visit Giverny.
A dream delayed
In 2007 Osborn and her daughter traveled to France to see Monet’s garden. Saving the most important for last, they visited a number of art museums and other places around Paris. The last day of their stay they set out to visit the garden. After a number of confusions about the Metro, they were finally straightened out and on their way to the train station to realize Osborn’s longtime dream. But, to their great distress, they had missed the train by about 10 minutes.
When the Concord Arts Association offered a weeklong trip to Monet’s garden in early June 2014, Osborn was the first to sign up. The group’s leader, artist Marjorie Glick, had made special arrangements for them (eight ladies and one “unfortunate gentleman”) to paint in the garden every day for two hours after closing time, 6 to 8 p.m. In France it doesn’t get dark until about 10 p.m., so painting in the late afternoon was perfect. Osborn said the French are incredibly strict about rules and order. The group had to arrive exactly on time and line up by the gate or they wouldn’t be allowed in. Osborn said that during the day the garden is packed, and no painting is allowed.
After a few days, the gatekeeper, with whom the group had become friendly, said the artists could come at 6 a.m. the next day to paint the garden in a different light. Osborn described it as a “glorious” day—as it was for the entire week of the trip. When they got to the gate, there was already a line. Osborn said she felt as though she was waiting for the gates of heaven to open. When the gatekeeper—named Pierre, Osborn grinned—motioned the group in, there were grumblings from a few people ahead of them. One woman standing next to Osborn asked, with annoyance, how they got to go in so early. Osborn explained that they were painters, whereupon the woman proclaimed she was also a painter. Osborn tried to explain that they had obtained special permission, but she left the woman sputtering as she walked through the gift shop, formerly Monet’s third studio built expressly for his Water Lilies series, and into “heaven.”
‘Light Too Bright to Look’
On that day, Osborn set up in a part of the garden where the sun was just rising in the upper corner of her canvas. She said she wanted to capture the sun “coming right at you.” As it grew brighter, she realized the colors of the garden were blurring, and she thought of the effect as the light too bright to look. Right then, Osborn declared to herself that if she were ever to have an art show, she would name it for that moment.
“The Light Too Bright to Look.” (Painting by Suzan Osborn)
Osborn’s method was to put her easel in a different part of the garden every day. She would do a small sketch of the scene in front of her, using water-soluble oil paints that dry quickly. She would also take “a billion” pictures of each view she painted. She planned to finish the sketches when she got home before painting them on larger canvases, but when she told Glick her plan, she was given excellent advice. Glick urged her not to finish the sketches because in so doing she would change everything she started with; she would lose the original experience. Instead, Osborn later worked from the unfinished sketches and her photos. She found that they took her back to re-experience those moments in the actual garden.
In 2016, when the Concord Arts Association planned another trip to Giverny, Osborn was all in. That week the weather did not cooperate, and the artists went into the garden carrying umbrellas. Osborn said that early in the week, the colors were beautiful in the mist, but by week’s end, everything was sodden. She recalled that they actually closed the garden the next week.
From idea to canvas
In all, from those two visits, Osborn has 25 framed oil paintings, in varied sizes, of Monet’s garden. She said she had to put herself on a strict schedule to finish them (how French of her!). As of this week, there is only one empty space in the “garden”—a fairly wide panel on the left front of the gallery. When she brought in the intended painting to try it out, it got swallowed up by the space. Now, she said, she is working on an “edgy triptych.” It will be an abstract of Monet’s pond, with golden tones. She seemed a bit uneasy about it as it is not her usual style; she has the idea—“the tricky part is getting the idea to the canvas.”
Osborn has done extensive reading about Monet and has a wealth of information that she interspersed in our conversation. In 1880 Monet was journeying with his wife and four stepdaughters into the countryside. From the window of the train he saw a house with an orchard and declared, “I want that.” It so happened that the house, named Le Pressoir because of its apples, was for sale. Monet painted the exterior pink with green (Monet’s green) shutters, and he planted a garden with the express purpose of having it to paint. Later, Monet diverted a tributary of the Epte River to make his pond and Japanese garden. He was a very private person and let only a few other artists see his garden.
Osborn said she is having a hard time pricing her paintings, even though she has previously sold two paintings through Skinner Auctioneers and so has been “certified” at an “auction rate,” the gold standard of gallery art pricing. “I am not a commercial artist,” she said. “I paint for my own pleasure. It’s an obsession—or maybe a curse. It’s not a hobby. It’s what I have to do. It’s my contribution.” She said it would be difficult to part with her work because each painting is a part of her. But then again, she admits, “I’m running out of space in my house.”
