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When René Wehrli, Director of the Kunsthaus from 1950 to 1976, travelled to Giverny, he was given a free choice from amongst all the large water lily pictures in Monet’s studio that were not used for his Orangerie project: since then two of the most beautiful of these fascinating canvases have been at the centre of Monet’s work in the Kunsthaus – the most important collection of works in Europe outside of Paris. The emphasis on the late work reflects its greater importance for 20th century painting: the most radical painting of the series of haystacks, today also in Zurich, inspired Kandinsky with the idea of pure, non-figurative painting.
