Aileen Bordman: Monet's Garden

Bordman’s photographs of Giverny range from large-scale, horizontal landscapes that capture views of the Japanese Bridge and water lilies of the Bassin to the rose-covered archways and meandering paths of the Clos Normand. Other works focus on tightly composed sections of the artist’s cultivated color harmonies in the full bloom of the spring season. Bordman’s carefully conceived images capture many of the hundreds of species of flora that comprise Giverny’s gardens. Her work reflects a deep and intimate knowledge of the site and its particularities, which only a lifetime of passionate study could allow.

With a technique founded in twentieth century photography, Bordman uses a variety of Sony cameras, always fitted with Zeiss lenses (the same brand that Monet himself used in his spectacles). Bordman’s extensive knowledge of Monet’s planting process in the Bassin, Clos Normand, and the artist’s two-acre kitchen garden has been fundamental to her artistic practice, as she has sought to capture Monet’s intricate garden compositions and color schemes. Just as Monet brought his rich understanding of color theory and atmosphere to Giverny’s garden design, Bordman’s aesthetic is shaped by the Impressionist movement, including a focus on the effects of changing light and temporal mood.

The roots of Bordman’s passion began with her mother, Dame Helen Rappel Bordman (1932-2020), one of a small group of dedicated Americans responsible, alongside French authorities and benefactors, for the renaissance of Monet’s garden and home at Giverny. Monet lived and worked at Giverny from 1883 to 1926, but the property was bequeathed to his son after his death and ultimately left to ruin in 1947. The meticulous restoration process began in 1974 when the Institut de France, which inherited the property, asked art historian Gérald Van der Kamp (1912-2002) to restore the desolate home and gardens of Claude Monet. American philanthropist Lila Acheson Wallace, at the suggestion of Metropolitan Museum Curator, Charles Moffett, supported this effort with generous funds, and her friend Helen Bordman joined their vigorous campaign to rescue this cultural treasure for all to visit and enjoy.

Throughout the next years and for decades after, Dame Bordman helped to raise significant financial support to grow, maintain and operate Fondation Claude Monet in Giverny, leading the development of a creative volunteer program that has included historians, gardeners and artists alike. Dame Bordman kept an apartment at Giverny for four decades, with her daughter a frequent visitor. Drawing upon these special ties to Giverny, Aileen Bordman came to know every square inch of the garden at every time of day. Dame Bordman was awarded the Chevalier, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, by the French Minister of Culture in 2017 in recognition of her great contribution to French culture, a rarity for an American. In honor of Claude Monet and her mother’s dedicated service to Giverny, Bordman now carries the baton, bringing the world of Claude Monet to all.