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2026 is proving to be a great year for Blackpool. Alongside getting a brand new theme park ride for Pleasure Beach and possibly a new direct link to London, the northwestern seaside resort town is one of Time Out’s best places to visit in 2026.
Better yet, Blackpool’s art fans will soon have easy access to a masterpiece. Grundy Art Gallery will put a new Claude Monet work on show later this month.
Monet’s ‘The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil’ (1872) will be on display in the Grundy as part of The National Gallery Masterpiece Tour. The initiative seeks to share the London institution’s collection with galleries and museums across the UK, having previously brought Rembrandt to Belfast, Manet to Canterbury, and Degas to Pembrokeshire.
The artwork (above) shows a calming scene of the Seine on the outskirts of Paris, with two figures playing by the foggy water. Painted in Argenteuil, where Monet lived from 1871 to 1878, the image shows a quiet landscape on the cusp of industrialisation.
This marks only the second time the painting has left The National Gallery in the past 20 years, and the Grundy is one of just four galleries chosen to exhibit it. Guests will be able to see the Monet piece in Blackpool from March 28 until June 13.
For those less in-the-know about the northwest’s art scene, the Grundy is set in a beautiful Grade II-listed Edwardian building that is less than a 10-minute walk from Blackpool North train station. The Lancashire gallery is no stranger to big-name artworks, having previously hosted exhibitions with pieces by the likes of Tracey Emin, JMW Turner and Louise Bourgeois.
Monet’s landscape will be accompanied by a school exhibition and a new sound work in response to the piece which was created by young people from The Magic Club charity.
And that isn’t all that’s lined up for the Grundy this spring. A new show by Louise Giovanelli titled From Here to Here to Here will show off rarely seen paintings and drawings by the contemporary London-born painter. The exhibition will trace Giovanelli’s career from art school graduation to global renown, and end by displaying works from recent graduates of Apollo Painting School, a training programme she co-founded in 2023.
Monet’s ‘The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil’ has been touring the UK since 2025. It’s been displayed at South Shields Museum and Art Gallery in South Tyneside and The Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, and after the Grundy you’ll be able to catch it from June 19 at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull. It will return to The National Gallery in September 2026.
More Monet: Tate has revealed a huge exhibition of the impressionist’s work in London in 2027.
Did you see that a long-lost Rossetti painting has gone on display in an underrated Midlands museum?
Plus: Billy Connelly is now a tour guide at a legendary Glasgow art gallery.
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