‘Sunrise’ Casts Its Rays on Getty Painting Collection

Making its first major acquisition since Barry Munitz took charge of the J. Paul Getty Trust last January--and demonstrating that it is still in the art market in a big way--the Getty Museum has purchased an early French Impressionist painting by Claude Monet. “Sunrise,” a sun-dappled view of the industrial harbor at Le Havre, painted in 1873, was acquired privately in France for an undisclosed sum.

Munitz said the painting is “obviously very expensive,” in “the multimillion-dollar range,” but declined to state the figure paid for the 19 1/3-by-23 2/3-inch oil. The acquisition was approved Thursday morning at a meeting of the Getty board of trustees. The painting will go on view at the museum on Tuesday.

The Getty purchased the Monet because “it’s a perfect fit” in the museum’s collection, and the painting marks a moment of historic importance in the history of art, Munitz said. “Sunrise” is closely related to a far more celebrated 1873 Monet painting of the harbor, “Impression, Sunrise,” which gave the Impressionist art movement its name. Although the term “Impressionism” had been used in art circles, critic Louis Le Roy--who dismissed “Impression, Sunrise” as unfinished drivel and ridiculed its title in an exhibition review in 1874--is credited with popularizing the term.

Munitz was chancellor of the California State University system before joining the Getty last January, and this week was named to head Gov.-elect Gray Davis’ transition team. He said the purchase has symbolic value: “I see this acquisition as a very critical signal in answer to all those rumors and innuendoes and worries, not only about my appointment, but about all the money we spent on opening the Getty Center and how the decline of the stock market might affect us. Obviously, this is an indication that hasn’t made a damned bit of difference.”

The purchase has also reassured Getty insiders, he said. “I felt very strongly about signaling the museum that although the art world isn’t my background and I’m focusing so much more attention on [the trust’s other programs], the museum is still the core of what we do. It’s still front and center.”

Deborah Gribbon, deputy director of the museum, said the Monet is “a keystone painting” that complements other Impressionist works in the Getty’s holdings, including the 1891 “Wheatstacks (Snow Effect, Morning)” also by Monet, “The Promenade” (1870) by Pierre Auguste Renoir and “Rue Mosnier, Paris, Decorated With Flags” (1878) by Edouard Manet.

“It’s a great coup,” said Monet scholar Paul Hayes Tucker, professor of art history at the University of Massachusetts and co-curator of the exhibition “Monet in the 20th Century” currently at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, upon hearing news of the Getty’s acquisition. Tucker said he and most other scholars know the canvas only through reproduction.

“It’s certainly a picture of unusual interest, given the subject and date,” he said. “Everything you’d want in an Impressionist painting of that period is likely going to be there.”

Monet, who lived from 1840 to 1926, is the quintessential French Impressionist, known for exploring the changing quality of light in different atmospheric conditions and at various times of day. Painting on location at Le Havre, he probably began “Sunrise” out of doors and finished it in his studio, Gribbon said.

A ‘More Radical’ Version of Its Celebrated Cousin

Although the Getty painting and its better-known counterpart depict the same subject at the same time of day and are about the same size, the two paintings are quite different. Characterizing “Sunrise” as the “more radical” composition, Gribbon noted that the large sailboat in the foreground effectively flattens the space; in contrast, “Impression, Sunrise” draws viewers’ eyes into relatively deep space.

“Impression, Sunrise” is in the collection of the Marmottan Museum in Paris, where it is frequently seen by tourists. The Getty’s “Sunrise” has not been publicly exhibited since 1910, Gribbon said. French collector, painter and industrialist Henri Rouart acquired the painting soon after it was created, and it remained in his family.

Rouart’s heirs put the work on the market through Galerie Schmidt in Paris several years ago. The Getty has been trying to buy the painting for the last three or four years. The French government recently agreed to allow it to be exported, probably because French museums are well supplied with Monets, including “Impression, Sunrise,” she said.

The Getty Monet is in pristine condition, said Mark Leonard, paintings conservator at the museum. The painting has not been relined, a process that flattens the texture, and it doesn’t even need to be cleaned, he said.

The record auction price for a Monet painting is $33 million, paid this past June for a large, classic, late-Impressionist image, “Waterlily Pond and Path” (1900). More than a dozen other Monet paintings have brought more than $10 million apiece at auction during the last decade. But buying “Sunrise” did not wipe out the museum’s budget, Munitz said.

“Extraordinary purchases like this are not charged against the regular acquisitions budget,” he said. The museum’s annual acquisitions budget dropped from $46 million to $25 million the year before Munitz arrived; this year’s allotment is also $25 million.