Claude Monet
Monet grew up on the Normandy coast near Le Havre, which is the only biographical detail that really matters. Everything he painted for sixty years came back to light on water, weather moving across a landscape, and the gap between what you see and what you think you see.
Biography
He was a competent caricaturist as a teenager, selling drawings of local figures for pocket money. Then he met Eugene Boudin, a beach scene painter who dragged him outdoors. Boudin's idea was simple: paint what is in front of you, outside, in real light, before the light changes. Most artists at the time worked from sketches in a studio. Monet never really went back indoors.
In 1872[8] he painted the harbour at Le Havre through morning fog and called it Impression, Sunrise. A critic used the title to mock the whole group of artists who exhibited with Monet in 1874. The name stuck. Impressionism[8] was an insult that became a movement.
He moved to Giverny in 1883[8] and spent the next decade gardening. In 1893 he bought the land next to his house, dug a pond, diverted a stream (over the objections of local villagers who thought his foreign plants would poison their cattle), and planted water lilies ordered from the Latour-Marliac nursery, whose founder had just bred a new hybrid variety shown at the 1889 World's Fair. Then he spent the last thirty-one years of his life painting that pond. Over 300 canvases. Some of the later ones are two metres wide and barely representational: colour and reflection dissolving into each other.
He developed cataracts and kept painting. The late works shift toward red and brown because he could not see blue properly. He had three operations in 1923[8], at eighty-two. The day after the 1918 Armistice, he promised a set of water lily paintings to the French[8] state as a monument to peace. They hang in the Orangerie in Paris, in two oval rooms built to his specifications.
Timeline
- 1840Born on 14 November in Paris. The family relocated to Le Havre on the Normandy coast when he was five.
- 1858Met the landscape painter Eugene Boudin in Le Havre, aged 18. Boudin introduced him to plein-air painting on the Normandy coast.
- 1862Entered the studio of Charles Gleyre in Paris, aged 22, where he befriended Renoir, Bazille, and Sisley.
- 1874Exhibited Impression, Sunrise at the first independent group exhibition in Paris, aged 33. A hostile critic coined the term "Impressionism."
- 1879Camille Monet died on 5 September at Vetheuil, aged just 32. Monet, then 38, was left to raise their two young sons.
- 1883Settled at Giverny in Normandy, aged 42. Over the following decades he transformed the garden into an elaborate landscape with a Japanese bridge and water lily pond.
- 1891Exhibited his Haystacks series at Galerie Durand-Ruel, aged 50. The fifteen paintings sold out within three days.
- 1923Underwent cataract surgery at 82, after years of deteriorating vision. His friend Clemenceau urged the operation so he could complete the Water Lilies panels.
- 1926Died of lung cancer on 5 December at Giverny, aged 86. His Water Lilies panels were installed the following spring at the Musee de l'Orangerie in Paris.
Notable Works
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Where to See Claude Monet
23 museums worldwide.
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87 worksMusée d'Orsay
Paris, France
The Musée d'Orsay in Paris concentrates on the formative decade before Impressionism had a name. Women in the Garden (1866) and Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe (1865) predate the 1874 exhibition, while The artist's garden at Giverny (1900) closes the arc at the other end.
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44 worksMetropolitan Museum of Art
New York City, United States
The Met's 44 Monets lean on pre-Impressionist beach scenes and the first experiments with broken colour. Garden at Sainte-Adresse (1867) and La Grenouillere (1869), painted beside Renoir, show the technique arriving before the label did.
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39 worksMuseum of Fine Arts Boston
Boston, United States
Boston's MFA assembled one of the earliest Monet groups in America, with 39 canvases rooted in late 19th-century Bostonian collecting. La Japonaise (1876) sits alongside Rouen Cathedral and Haystacks series paintings, giving visitors a near-complete walk through his move from figure work into serial atmosphere studies.
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92 worksMusée Marmottan Monet
Paris, France
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Claude Monet prints
Hand-finished archival prints from Claude Monet's body of work.
Wild Poppies, near Argenteuil - Claude Monet
From £28.00
The Garden at Vétheuil - Claude Monet
From £28.00
Clifftop Walk at Pourville - Claude Monet
From £28.00
Watermill at Limetz - Claude Monet
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Ile de La Grande Jatte Through the Trees - Claude Monet
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Rouen Cathedral, the Portal, Morning Fog - Claude Monet
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Related Artists
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See all Claude Monet prints →Frequently Asked Questions
Did claude monet have children?
Monet invited Alice Hoschedé and her five children to live with him and his family after her husband went bankrupt. In 1879[8], Monet's wife, Camille, died after a long illness.How did claude monet die?
Claude Monet died in 1926[8] at the age of 86.How did claude monet paint?
Monet loved the water and often painted the sea. He even converted a flat-bottomed boat, fitted out with grooves to hold his canvases, into a floating studio where he painted stacks of pictures.Is claude monet french?
Claude Monet was born in Paris in 1840[8]. He grew up in Le Havre, in northwest France, and this location gave the Impressionist movement its name.Was claude monet blind?
Claude Monet had three operations to treat cataracts. The operation on one eye was successful enough that he could see the odd things he had been doing with his paintings before the operation; a second operation on the same eye helped still more, but he began to have trouble perceiving colours.What is claude monet famous for painting?
Claude Monet is globally recognised as a painter of colour and light. He is known for painting landscapes and seas, rivers and bridges, architecture and parks, and gardens and flowers, capturing ever-changing atmospheric conditions.When did claude monet start painting?
At sixteen, Claude Monet was already famous in Le Havre. He had been drawing cartoons of his teachers at school and selling other caricatures to people, earning about 20 francs for each picture.Where can i see claude monet paintings?
Claude Monet's works can be seen at Musée Marmottan Monet, Musée d'Orsay, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and 2 other museums worldwide.Why did claude monet paint water lilies?
Monet painted water lilies because he was engrossed by landscapes of water and reflections. He wrote that it had become an obsession, and he wanted to reproduce what he felt.Who was claude monet inspired by?
Monet was fascinated by water throughout his life. He must have felt challenged in his attempts to capture its volatile nature, the continuously changing character and tones.
Sources
Editorial draws on the following primary and tertiary references for Claude Monet.
- [1] museum Brooklyn Museum Used for: museum holdings.
- [2] museum Musée d'Art et d'Histoire Used for: museum holdings.
- [3] museum Buffalo AKG Art Museum Used for: museum holdings.
- [4] museum Clark Art Institute Used for: museum holdings.
- [5] museum San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Used for: museum holdings.
- [6] museum Städel Museum Used for: museum holdings.
- [7] wikidata Wikidata: Q296 Used for: identifiers.
- [8] wikipedia Wikipedia: Claude Monet Used for: biography, birth dates, death dates, identifiers, movement attribution, nationality.
- [9] book Linda Bolton, Art revolutions _ Impressionism Used for: biography.
- [10] book Linda Bolton, Art revolutions _ Impressionism_1 Used for: biography.
- [11] book Linda Bolton, Art revolutions _ Impressionism_2 Used for: biography.
Editorial overseen by Solis Prints. Sources verified 2026-06-24. Click a source for details, or hover over [N] in the page above to preview.
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