Claude Monet
1902
Oil on canvas
Claude Monet often marvelled at London’s ‘extraordinary fog so very yellow’. Yellow fogs were common at the time due to large concentrations of sulphurous emissions in the air. Monet complements this tone with swathes of pink and purple. The placement of the seemingly floating bridge cutting through the composition is indebted to Japanese prints, which Monet collected.
This painting was given to Winston Churchill in 1949 by his literary agent who added that he hoped Churchill, by then the Leader of the Opposition, would soon ‘dissipate the fog that shrouds Westminster’ – an allusion to the Houses of Parliament, visible in the distance on the right.