Over the past fifty years the luxuriant gardens at Monet's house in Giverny slowly perished and ran wild. Weeds choked the garden paths and flowerbeds; termites feasted on the celebrated Japanese footbridge; sludge invaded the water-lily pond. Finally the gardens were closed to visitors. Yet this spring Monet's carefully designed and lovingly cultivated gardens-which provided the greatest single source of his work for over forty years-will be reopened to the public, resotred to their rampant glory. The transformation was the work of Lila Acheson Wallace, who has made miracles in a dozen realms of the world of art. In this case she worked her magic through a generous grant to the Inistitut de France, the administrators of the grounds at Giverny. It is to celebrate the new flowering of the gardens and to honor the extraordinary Mrs. Wallace that the Museum has organized the exhibition Monet's Years at Giverny: Beyond Impressionism.

(This title was originally published in 1978/81).