Now this is a good idea — a collaboration between the New York Botanical Garden* and the Metropolitan Museum of Art* that I wouldn’t necessarily have predicted.
This summer belongs to Monet at the NYBG. Not only will it recreate Monet’s garden at Giverny inside the conservatory, but also it will, in the Rondina Gallery, mount an exhibition called “The Artist in the Garden” curated by Paul Hayes Tucker — a foremost Monet scholar. It will include, for the first time together, two rarely seen paintings by Monet – Irises from a private Swiss collection, at right, and The Artist’s Garden in Giverny, on loan from the Yale University Art Gallery. Also on view will be “his paint-encrusted wooden palette and an evocative array of historical photographs that show the artist creating and enjoying his garden.”
In the conservatory, visitors will encounter
…a façade of Monet’s house offer[ing] a glimpse of the artist’s view of his garden and the flowers that served as his muse for many of his most famous paintings. As visitors walk past the vine-covered pink walls with bright-green shutters, familiar to anyone who has seen the original in Giverny, their senses will be invigorated by the sights and scents of spring aubretias, bellflowers, and poppies, as well as masses of Dutch, German-bearded, Japanese, and Siberian irises, which Monet immortalized in his art.
A re-creation of Monet’s Grand Allée from his formal garden known as Clos Normand, or Norman enclosure, will include a path of rose-covered arches with beds of lush, colorful flowers lining both sides. A Japanese footbridge dressed with mauve and white Asian wisterias will extend over a picturesque pool, calling to mind Monet’s water garden, encircled with willow trees, bamboo groves, and flowering shrubs.
Read more of that part here, because what visitors will see changes in the summer and fall.
I wasn’t sure how art museums would react to this incursion. Sure, botanical gardens have been offering visitors art exhibits for years, but paintings? That’s a step further. Cultural institutions compete for visitors’ time as well as interests, after all.
But then today came the announcement from the NYBG about a new iPhone ap — NYBG IN BLOOM. It includes one element in collaboration with the Met:  “Paintings and Plants.”
 This special feature of the app enables visitors to virtually view select Monet paintings on display at the Met and link to the Met’s Web site for further information about them, complementing what visitors see at the Garden’s exhibition.
 That sounds terrific — a win-win. Read more here.
The NYBG’s fantastic-sounding summer of Monet begins on May 19 and runs through October 21.
Photo Credits: Courtesy of the NYBG
*I consult to a foundation that supports both institutions.