Lectures/Panel Discussions/Films/Performances
The Fresno Art Museum hosts thought-provoking and educational lectures, panel discussions, and films throughout the year. The Museum also co-sponsors lectures, panel discussions, and films held at other locations in the community.
Watch this page for information on news of these ongoing educational, informative, and entertaining events held in FAM 150 seat Bonner Auditorium.
Lecture on Monet and Venice
by Michele Ellis Pracy, FAM Executive Director and Chief Curator in support of the FAM Bus Trip to visit that exhibition at
San Francisco's de Young Museum on April 19, 2026
Thursday, April 16, 2026
4 to 5 pm
Bonner Auditorium
Lecture will include a PowerPoint presentation
FREE to Fresno Art Museum members and those registered for the April 19 trip
Non-Museum Members pay regular Museum admission
Although Claude Monet visited Venice only once, his paintings of the city are among his most dazzling. This exhibition, co-organized with the Brooklyn Museum, is the first dedicated to Monet’s Venetian cityscapes since their debut over a century ago. Featuring more than 100 artworks, the exhibition places Monet’s Venice paintings alongside select works from across his career, including his Water Lilies, as well as Venetian views by artists such as Manet, Renoir, and Canaletto. Unlike the bustling scenes painted by other artists, Monet’s Venice is eerily deserted, its architecture, buildings, and canals dissolving in an encompassing, hazy light he described as the envelope. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to experience Monet’s vision of the famed Italian city.
Image credit: Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926), The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice (detail), 1908. Oil on canvas. 26 1/8 x 36 7/8 in. (66.358 x 93.663). Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, The Lockton Collection, 70.76