![Claude MonetMeules,milieu du jour [Haystacks, midday]1890, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Australia, Purchased 1979](https://geelonggallery.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/4982_web-29073_pm-large-viewing-jpeg-4200px-1-1.jpg)
Claude Monet Meules, milieu du jour (Haystacks, midday) 1890, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Australia, Purchased 1979
Claude Monet Meules, milieu du jour (Haystacks, midday) 1890, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Australia, Purchased 1979
Claude Monet and Australian Impressionism
Saturday 30 May to Sunday 25 October 2026
- Free entry
Claude Monet’s Haystacks, midday (1890) is one of a series of paintings the French artist completed of wheat stacks in a field adjoining his property at Giverny near Paris. Long revered as Claude Monet’s most exquisite series, the Haystack paintings are remarkable for the range of light and weather conditions portrayed.
On loan from the National Gallery of Australia through the Sharing the National Collection initiative, Haystacks, midday is displayed alongside works from Geelong Gallery’s Collection by Australian plein air painters of the late-19th and early 20th centuries, many of whom played a key role in the development of Australian Impressionism and shared Monet’s interest in capturing various effects of light, atmospheric conditions and seasonal shifts in nature.
A Geelong Gallery exhibition
Claude Monet’s Haystacks, midday is on long term loan from the National Gallery of Australia with support from the Australian Government as part of Sharing the National Collection.
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 presentation of Haystacks, midday has coincided with Discovering the Impressionists, which brings together seven paintings by Claude Monet. Together, these eight works have made Geelong home to the largest concentration of Monet’s work currently on show anywhere in Australia.
Claude Monet’s Haystacks, midday is on display in Claude Monet and Australian Impressionism until Sunday 25 October 2026. Entry is free.
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.
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