Haystacks
Claude Monet · 1890–1891
Oil on canvas
Quick answer
Haystacks (1890–1891) by Claude Monet is in Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Haystacks (or Stacks of Wheat) is a series of twenty-five oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet, created between 1890 and 1891. Each depicts the same haystacks in a field near his home at Giverny, Normandy, under different light conditions, times of day, and seasons. The series is the first of Monet's major serial paintings and is considered the founding moment of painting as a meditation on time and perception. Multiple versions are in major collections; the Art Institute of Chicago holds six. World Museum Guide explains what you're looking at and how to see it.
Frequently asked questions
How many Haystacks paintings did Monet paint?
Monet painted approximately 25 paintings in the Haystacks series between 1890 and 1891. They depict the same haystacks near his home at Giverny in different seasons (summer, autumn, winter), times of day (dawn, midday, sunset), and weather conditions (clear, foggy, snowy). Fifteen were shown at the Durand-Ruel gallery in 1891; the full series of 25 has been assembled only twice — in exhibitions in 1990 and 2019.
Where are Monet's Haystacks?
The Haystacks paintings are spread across major museum collections worldwide. The Art Institute of Chicago holds six — the largest single collection. Others are at the Musée d'Orsay (Paris), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the National Gallery of Scotland (Edinburgh), the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and in private collections.
How much did a Monet Haystacks sell for?
A version (Meules, 1890) sold at Sotheby's New York in May 2019 for $110.7 million — a world record for any Monet at auction and one of the ten highest prices ever paid for any artwork. It was purchased by an anonymous buyer and broke the previous Monet auction record by a large margin.
Why did Monet paint the same haystacks so many times?
Monet was interested not in the haystacks themselves but in what light and atmosphere did to them — how the same physical objects could look completely different at dawn versus sunset, in winter fog versus summer haze. By painting the same motif repeatedly, he could demonstrate that perception is never fixed: the 'real' haystack is always a moving, changing experience rather than a stable object. This insight was the founding idea of serial painting.
What did Kandinsky say about Haystacks?
Wassily Kandinsky described seeing a Haystacks painting (Meules) at an exhibition in Moscow around 1895 and being unable to identify the subject — the light and colour had dissolved the haystacks to the point where he couldn't tell what he was looking at. Yet the painting moved him profoundly. This experience — that a painting could be emotionally powerful without a recognisable subject — was a key step in his journey toward non-representational abstraction.