Adelphi to Exhibit Works by Monet from the Adele and Herbert J. Klapper Collection

An exclusive one-week exhibition at Adelphi. This April, two masterpieces by French impressionist painter Claude Monet (1840-1926) will be on display in the Adele and Herbert J. Klapper Center for Fine Arts, Cambridge Avenue entrance, Garden City, NY. These well-known paintings are a generous loan from the Adele and Herbert J. Klapper collection. The Monet exhibition will run only from Saturday, April 9 to Wednesday, April 13, 2011.

On view will be L’Escalier a Vetheuil (1881) and Le Palais Ducal (1908). L’Escalier a Vetheuil is one of Monet’s garden paintings from his home in the small agricultural town of Vetheuil, France, on the river Seine some 50 miles from Paris.

“A stone stairway surrounded by flowers leads to an asymmetrical garden ablaze with light, and overflowing with an abundance of sunflowers, hollyhock, nasturtiums, and other natural flowers which appear to dance free of the structure and belie Monet’s meticulous arrangement of the setting.” (The Herbert J. Klapper Collection. Beadleston Gallery. New York: 2002) Le Palais Ducal is Monet’s celebrated last architectural painting. It is from Monet’s first visit to Venice in 1908 when he was nearly 70. The rhythmic patterns of Monet’s brushstrokes in this piece record fleeting impressions of light and color across the surface of Venice’s canals, while retaining the integrity of the monumental structure.

The Monet exhibition is made possible by Adele Klapper ’92, M.A. ’99. Various masterpieces of art on loan from the collection she built with her late husband, Herbert J. Klapper, have been exhibited in the Adele and Herbert J. Klapper Center for Fine Arts over the past five years. In 2007, in recognition of Adele’s generous support to Adelphi University and its art programs, the new Fine Arts and Facilities building was dedicated in her honor. In 2005, Adele Klapper received the President’s Medal of Merit, the highest award given by Adelphi’s president, and in 2007, she was honored with the Outstanding Service to Adelphi award at the annual President’s Gala.

The Adele and Herbert J. Klapper Center for Fine Arts gallery is open 9:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. Sunday through Saturday. Admission is free and open to the public.

For more information on this and other art exhibitions and events, please visit the Adelphi University Virtual Art Musem.