Jean Gaumy: A Certain Nature

Through his detailed investigations of flora and fauna, Gaumy devises an innovative view of Monet’s Giverny garden

Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny is famous the world over for its water lily pond, which gave rise to some of the artist’s most dazzling paintings. Magnum photographer Jean Gaumy (born 1948) has had privileged access to Monet’s garden for many years, allowing him to conduct photographic research inspired by his love of science and botany. Drawing from the joy he experienced in his family’s garden while young, he has sought to re-create that childhood curiosity and sense of wonder through photography that is both abstract and naturalistic. Jean Gaumy’s Giverny is not an atlas of forms, but rather a photographic experiment in documenting nature from different angles. In these otherworldly duotone photographs, Monet’s storied garden becomes something out of time in compositions bordering on the pictorial in their documenting of microscopic details.