Tag Archives: Paul Tucker

Portrait of the artist as an old man

In this Cambridge Forum Classic, Paul Tucker, professor emeritus of art at UMass, offers a striking new view of Monet, the quintessential impressionist showing him to be a far more complicated figure than previously acknowledged, fiercely competitive and ambitious, as well as sensitive and inventive.

Monet created more than 2,500 paintings, drawings, and pastels that radically altered the way art was made and understood. Tucker reflects on the artist’s oeuvre as an evolving enterprise that evolved over his lifetime and was driven by Monet’s steadfast belief in the power of art to express ideas.

Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man: Paul Tucker
Claude Monet, Morning on the Seine, near Giverny (detail), 1897

Paint what you really see, not what you think you ought to see.

Claude Monet

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Exhibition: Monet and Boston: Legacy Illuminated

April 17–October 17, 2021

Claude Monet, Grainstack (Sunset) (detail), 1891. Oil on canvas. 

Recorded in 1998 at Cambridge Forum

Paul Tucker, a professor emeritus of art at the University of MA, is one of the foremost authorities on Monet, the quintessential impressionist. He offers a striking new view of the artist, showing him to be a far more complicated figure than previously acknowledged, fiercely competitive and ambitious, as well as sensitive and inventive.

Learning to Look

CF Learning to Look

Boston Globe art critic Sebastian Smee and  Paul Tucker, curator of the Monet exhibitions at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts  discuss the ways that looking at a work of art can open it up to reveal a rich web of information about the work itself, its maker and the society in which it was created.  How does a work of art become meaningful for the beholder? Where can that appreciation lead the ordinary person?

This program is part of the series  My Life Touched by Art, supported by a grant from the Cambridge Arts Council and the Massachusetts Cultural Council

Recorded 4/30/2014