OSCAR CLAUDE MONET 1840-1926

Monet was brought up in the Normandy coastal town of Le Havre. He attended the Académie Suisse in Paris. In 1860, he met the landscape artist Eugène Boudin, who introduced him to plein-air painting, and he began to produce increasingly ambitious and naturalistic work.

In 1874, having banded together with other artists to form the Société Anonyme des Artistes, Monet submitted his painting Impression, Sunrise to the group’s first exhibition. The work caused a sensation, and gave the name “impressionists” to the burgeoning movement.

By 1890, Monet had moved to Giverny, later installing both the water-lily garden and Japanese bridge he would famously paint in series. Between 1899 and 1901, he made three trips to London to paint views of the Thames River. In 1915 Monet began work on his Grandes-Décorations, the large-scale water-lily series that would occupy him until his death.