Claude Monet French, 1840-1926

Claude Monet was born in France, in 1840, and spent his childhood in Le Havre. There he met the artist Eugène Boudin who saw his drawing work and introduced him to plein-air landscape painting. In 1859, Monet moved to Paris to study at the Académie Suisse, and became friends with Camille Pissarro. After a short time in Algeria serving in the military, he returned to Paris in 1862, where he became acquainted with other like-minded artists such as Cézanne, Whistler, Renoir and Manet.

After the outbreak of war in France, 1870, Monet and his new wife Camille moved to London. There, he met the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel and encountered the work of Constable. He moved briefly to Holland in 1871 before coming back to Paris to take part in the first impressionist exhibition. In the difficult period that followed the sudden death of Camille Monet in 1879, he lived with Ernest Hoschede, eventually becoming involved with Ernest’s wife Alice. Monet began to experience recognition for his work in the late 1880s and 1890s after moving with Alice to Giverny, the place that would inspire many of his best-known series of works. In his last years he suffered cataracts in both eyes which rendered him almost blind, but he continued to paint obsessively.

Monet died at Giverny in 1926.