On Sunday, the Detroit Institute of Arts will present two new exhibitions bundled as one, featuring works by painters Claude Monet and Frederic Church.

Though Monet and Church were contemporaries, they were not a part of the same movement. Church was an American, while Monet was a Frenchman. But the two exhibitions augment one another in numerous ways. Both artists were landscape painters, and both were known for their dramatic use of light. Church was more of a mainstream, straightforward realistic painter, though the best of his time. Monet, on the other hand, was a rule-breaker, developing the seemingly loose and unfinished style that would come to be known as Impressionism.

“Monet was just developing his style, while Church was at the pinnacle of his career,” says Jill Shaw, the DIA’s associate curator for European Modern Art. “But you can see that Monet was reacting to landscape artists like Church.”
Both artists have works in the DIA’s permanent collection, which serve as the centerpieces and launching points of their respective exhibitions. For Monet: Framing Life, that work was formerly known as “Gladioli” and was re-titled as “Rounded Flower Bed (Corbeille de fleurs)” following new research done for this exhibition.