Monet / Sécheret: a poetic face-off between two lovers of the sea at the Musée Marmottan Monet

The Musée Marmottan Monet presents a unique tête-à-tête between Claude Monet and Jean-Baptiste Sécheret in the exhibition "Monet / Sécheret. Paysages d'eau", an artistic dialogue between Impressionism and contemporary painting, in the heart of Trouville and its changing skies. The exhibition runs from October 9, 2025 to March 15, 2026.

What if two centuries of painting were to meet on the same beach? In the hushed halls of the Musée Marmottan Monet, an unexpected artistic encounter comes to life from October 9, 2025 to March 15, 2026. Jean-Baptiste Sécheret, a contemporary painter with a passion for the light of Normandy, responds to the museum's invitation to "dialogue" with the works of Claude Monet, in particular two emblematic canvases: Sur la plage à Trouville and Camille à la plage. For this tenth installment of the Dialogues inattendus series, the museum opens up a space for visual, temporal and emotional correspondence between two artists linked by a shared attachment to a seascape, that of Trouville-sur-Mer.

A sensitive tribute to Normandy and to painting from the motif

Born in 1957, Jean-Baptiste Sécheret grew up with Trouville in his sights. Since childhood, he has walked its beaches, observed its architecture and captured the capricious light that has made the Normandy coast a Mecca of French painting. For decades, he has been translating this intimate relationship with the Normandy region into works in a variety of formats - oils, pastels, inks, collages - in which each variation in the sky becomes a motif in its own right. His work, nourished by the rigor of drawing and the search for composition, is a contemporary echo of the early Monet, who painted on the spot, on the beach, alongside his wife Camille and his niece.

Theexhibition stages this sensitive dialogue between the Impressionist master's historic canvases and Sécheret 's series devoted to theHôtel des Roches Noires, seen from the apartment he occupied at the turn of the millennium. This emblematic building becomes a recurring subject, observed at different times of day, in all weathers, in an approach that could be said to be Monetian in principle: the series as an exploration of the moment.

An exhibition of memory, light and artistic resonance

Here, the museum room is transformed into a mental landscape, where memories of the Belle Époque, visions of seaside modernity and the imprints of a working-class world can be seen behind the industrial chimneys of Le Havre, in some of Sécheret's canvases. Without ever seeking the anecdotal, Sécheret paints the invisible: the passage of time, the imprint of a place, the melancholy of shores. Through his works, a certain Proustian ghost lurks, that of vacations past, of long dresses, of children playing on the beach, of seaside hotels.

This exhibition, conceived as an aesthetic journey, will appeal to lovers of landscape painting, enthusiasts of intergenerational dialogue in art, but also those curious to understand how a place can shape a work of art, just as it shapes a memory. It's ideal for a contemplative solo outing, an art-loving couple, or a family curious to discover Normandy through the eyes of painters. On the other hand, if you're looking for an interactive, spectacular or playful experience, this highly contemplative proposal may not be what you're looking for.

Trouville as the common thread of a pictorial tradition

Trouville became the anchor point in the history of French painting, from Corot to Boudin, from Monet to Bonnard. Sécheret, with humility and perseverance, completes a tradition, without nostalgia, but with a clear desire to make visible the silent beauty of reality. He captures the geometry of the world, the mathematical order of a landscape, the harmony of a building and a cloud, the depth of a dewy light.

What awaits you in this exhibition is not a fixed itinerary, but a journey through sensations. An invitation to slow down, to linger before skies of pale blue and bright pink, to let buried memories or dreamed images emerge. You'll almost hear footsteps in the sand, dresses crumpled by the wind, the sea breathing in the rhythm of the light.

At the heart of the Musée Marmottan Monet, Monet / Sécheret. Paysages d'eau offers a profound aesthetic experience, nourished by the resonance of a pictorial heritage revisited by a contemporary artist. An exhibition in which past and present are superimposed like layers of paint, the better to question what remains in the landscape.

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