Guest lecturer Dr. Molly Gwinn presents the third of four lectures on the French Impressionism era.

"Impressionism Landscapes: Monet's Journeys through Normandy" is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 14, at 10 a.m., at the Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines.

Claude Monet's seascape, titled "Impression, Sunrise," was in the first Impressionist group show of 1874 that gave the movement its name.

For decades, Monet's work best represented the new style of painting. He communicated the immediacy of experience and conveyed the presence of atmosphere and movement with pure color and rough brushstrokes. He was dedicated to landscape painting in the open air.

Gwinn recently completed her dissertation at Rutgers University on the lithographs of 19th century French artist, Odilon Redon. She has taught art history classes at Rutgers and New York University and was also assistant manager of education at the Dallas Museum of Art. She is the daughter of the late Barbara Sutherland, a well-known Southern Pines artist and long-time resident of Penick Village.

The lectures are sponsored jointly by the Arts Council of Moore County and the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities. The cost of the lecture is $10 for Arts Council and Weymouth members and $15 for nonmembers. The fourth and final lecture, "Impressionism and Modernism: What Picasso and Matisse Learned," is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 2.

Monet's views of Normandy, including the wild poppy fields and cultivated gardens at Giverny, will be on view at the North Carolina Museum of Art this fall. This is the first exhibition to focus on the region of France where Monet spent most of his life and created many of his greatest masterpieces.

The more than 40 paintings in the show offer a rare look at seldom-seen works borrowed from private and public collections around the world.

The North Carolina Museum of Art is the only East Coast venue for the exhibition.

The Arts Council will be conducting a one-day ARTour to the museum on Wednesday, Oct. 25, to view the "Monet in Normandy" exhibit.

For more information about the fine art lecture series or ARTour to the North Carolina Museum of Art, call the Arts Council at 910-692-4356.