Claude Monet—Haystacks, midday

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. 

As Geelong Gallery approaches its 130th anniversary in 2026, the arrival of Monet’s Haystacks, midday, on loan from the National Gallery of Australia, celebrates our first acquisition, Frederick McCubbin’s A bush burial (1890), purchased through public subscription and a cornerstone of the Collection. McCubbin, a founding figure of the Heidelberg School of Australian Impressionism, helped to shape a proud new, modern identity for Australia.

Claude Monet’s Haystacks, midday will be on display at Geelong Gallery for a two-year period. Visit Geelong Gallery for an encounter with one of art history’s most influential painters. 

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.