See How These Wristwatches Reimagine Famous Masterpieces by Claude Monet, Jackson Pollock, Edgar Degas and Paul Klee

The Swiss watchmaker Swatch has partnered with the Guggenheim to create a collection inspired by 20th-century artworks from the Impressionist and Abstract Expressionist movements

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

January 22, 2026

Share

Copy linkEmailSMSFacebookXRedditLinkedInBlueskyPrint

Add as preferred source

Four 20th-century masterpieces have been turned into wearable art as part of the newest collaboration between the Swiss watch company Swatch and two Guggenheim museums.

The new watches, which are now available for purchase, are inspired by brush strokes, colors and iconic artworks by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Paul Klee and Jackson Pollock that are housed in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy.

“This collaboration was inspired by a long-standing shared belief between Swatch and the Guggenheim: Art should be accessible, lived with and experienced beyond museum walls,” Vivian Stauffer, Swatch’s CEO, tells WWD’s Renan Botelho via email. “Each piece was selected for its emotional impact, its importance within the Guggenheim collections and its ability to translate meaningfully into the intimate format of a watch.”

The watch inspired by Monet’s The Palazzo Ducale, Seen From San Giorgio Maggiore (1908) features the titular palace on its face, while the reflections of sunshine glinting on water run up and down its band. When exposed to UV light, the watch face glows orange.

Degas’ Dancers in Green and Yellow (1903) depicts a scene of spectacle. The painter had an interest in the characters that defined spectacle in both high society and “the fringes of this world,” according to the Guggenheim’s website. Ballerinas are one of his most recognizable subjects, and the watch face of Degas’ Swatch isolates a dancer’s feet, her legs crossed into a difficult pose, framed within a pink case and gold hour markers.

One of the collection’s more unique pieces is the watch inspired by Klee’s The Bavarian Don Giovanni (1919), which pays homage to Mozart’s 1787 opera Don Giovanni. The painting features a figure climbing a ladder surrounded by the names of five women—listed on the watch strap—with whom Klee had “fleeting romantic interludes,” per the Guggenheim. Representative of the artist’s ever-changing inspirations and aspirations, a color wheel built into the watch face spins and changes daily above the ascending man.

Finally, the watch inspired by Pollock’s Alchemy (1947) is perhaps the boldest of the bunch. Bright hour and minute hands are contrasted against the layered and labyrinthine work within a transparent case. “When Alchemy is viewed from a distance, its large scale and even emphasis encourage the viewer to experience the painting as an environment,” writes Lucy Flint on the Guggenheim’s website.

“Swatch definitely began collaborating with famous artists to gain a foothold in the art community,” Esther Glina Montagner, an American painter and Swatch watch collector, tells GQ’s Laura McCreddie-Doak. “It put its money on the line to create ‘wearable art,’ as they called it. It was also a way for Swatch to upgrade its cheap plastic watches into a more cultural, trendy, art, fashion mass market product.”

This isn’t the first time Swatch has showcased famous artworks with its products. Previous partnerships with the Museum of Modern Art, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the René Magritte and Jean-Michel Basquiat estates have produced watches inspired by The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1831) by Hokusai, Reverie (1965) by Roy Lichtenstein, The Treachery of Images (1929) by Magritte and Hollywood Africans (1983) by Basquiat.

“We are grateful for Swatch’s support for the conservation of the Guggenheim Foundation’s permanent collection,” Karole P.B. Vail, director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, says in a statement. “Swatch understands time as few others do, and their generosity will ensure that these priceless works of art can be enjoyed by the public for decades and centuries to come.”

Christian Thorsberg | Read More

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.