Stephen Shore

Claude Monet found inspiration in the rose-covered trellises, wild rambles of nasturtiums, and idle drift of water lilies in the gardens of Giverny outside Paris. So too did Stephen Shore who photographed the gardens one hundred years later after their painstaking restoration. Commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art to photograph the renascence of the gardens, Shore visited Giverny over six years beginning in 1977. Going to the gardens before dawn and leaving after dusk, in different seasons, he came to know them in all the moods and textures that inspired Monet. Shore's fidelity to the gardens' plenitude and his desire to present the abstract beauty of nature result in exquisitely serene photographs that express the essence of Giverny.