GETTY BUYS SEMINAL MONET ART.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Daily News Staff Writer

The J. Paul Getty Museum has bolstered its small but select Impressionist collection by acquiring Claude Monet's ``Sunrise,'' one of the first paintings in the style that gave rise to the genre, museum officials announced Thursday.

The painting, one of six that Monet did of the northern French port of Le Havre in the spring of 1873, has rarely been exhibited and was acquired in a private sale for an undisclosed sum.

``This literally represents the beginning of Impressionism, and that's why it's so exciting to us,'' said Deborah Gribbon, deputy director of the museum and a specialist in 19th century French art. ``It's the most important acquisition we've made in a year.''

``Sunrise'' is set to go on permanent display Tuesday, joining two other works by Monet and paintings by his contemporaries also exemplifying the Impressionist school, including Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Edward Manet.

The Getty has been collecting Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings for 15 years, and museum officials regard ``Sunrise'' as a key acquisition.

``Not only is it beautiful, but it represents a great moment in art history and will serve important education purposes for our audiences,'' said Barry Munitz, president and chief executive officer of the J. Paul Getty Trust.

In June, another painting by Monet, ``Waterlily Pond and Path by Water,'' fetched $33 million, the highest price paid for any French Impressionist painting. The buyer was anonymous.

The highest known price paid for any painting was $53.9 million, which Australian industrialist Alan Bond paid for Vincent van Gogh's masterpiece ``Irises'' in 1990. The Getty purchased that painting three years later for an undisclosed sum when the overheated art market had cooled.

``Sunrise'' is in remarkable condition, reflecting the ephemeral play of light, water and air that remained Monet's subject for the rest of his career, Gribbon said. The painting marked a new phase in his career, one in which he took painting outside, directly from nature, to new heights.

The Getty's new acquisition was painted on Monet's same trip to Le Havre in which he created ``Impression, Sunrise,'' which gave the theory of painting its name. That painting is on display at the Marmottan Museum in Paris. Critics derided it as unfinished when it was displayed in Paris in 1874, Gribbon said.

``They thought (paintings of this style) were just sketches, and so they made fun of the style by calling the artists Impressionists,'' she said. ``The paintings would be done outdoors, but he would bring them back to the studio and continue to work on them, so the impression these paintings give, that they were painted quickly, is in fact an artful illusion.''

The Getty's other works by Monet are an early still life of flowers and a winter scene from 1891 in his Wheatstack series.

Besides being a teaching tool for children who visit the museum, ``Sunrise'' could become the centerpiece for an exhibition of other Monet pieces, if they can be borrowed from other museums, Gribbon said.

The acquisition of the painting illustrates the Getty's strategy of collecting key works that exemplify a particular genre.

``We are after the most important paintings by the most important artists that are in the best condition,'' Gribbon said.

Museum officials hope the new painting alone will draw visitors, although they caution that parking reservations are still required by calling [phone].

CAPTION(S):

photo

PHOTO (color) The Getty has bought Claude Monet's 1873 ``Sunrise.''