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Oscar-Claude Monet (November 14, 1840 –
December 5, 1926) was a French
impressionism|impressionist painter. 

Monet was born in Paris|Paris, France, but his
family moved to Le Havre in Normandy when he was
five. His father wanted him to go into the family
grocery store business, but Claude Monet wanted to
paint. On the beaches of Normandy, he met Eugène
Boudin, who taught him en plein air (outdoor)
techniques for painting, rather than painting in a
studio.

Monet served in the army in Algeria for two years
of a seven-year commitment (1860 – 1862),
but upon his contracting typhoid his aunt Madame
Lecadre intervened to get him out of the army if
he agreed to complete an art course at a
university.

Disillusioned with the traditional art taught at
universities, instead in 1862 he joined the studio
of Charles Gleyre in Paris, where he met
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frederic Bazille, and
Alfred Sisley. Together they shared new approaches
to art, which later came to be known as
impressionism, featuring open spaces and light
painted with thick brushstrokes.

Monet's 1866 The Woman in the Green Dress
(Camille, ou la femme à la robe verte), which
brought him recognition, depicted Camille
Doncieux. Shortly thereafter Doncieux became
pregnant and bore their first child, Jean.

During the Franco-Prussian War (1870 –
1871), Monet took refuge in England to avoid the
conflict. There he studied the works of John
Constable and J.M.W. Turner.


Upon returning to France, in 1872 (or 1873) he
painted Impression, Sunrise|(Impression, soleil
levant) depicting a Le Havre landscape. It hung in
the first impressionist exhibition in 1874 and is
now displayed in the Musée Marmottan-Monet,
Paris. From the painting's title, art critic Louis
Leroy coined the term "impressionism".

In 1873 Monet and Doncieux married and moved into
a house in Argenteuil near the Seine River. They
had another son, Michel, on March 17, 1878. Madame
Monet died of tuberculosis in 1879.

Alice Hoschedé decided to help Monet by bringing
up his two children together with her own. They
lived in Poissy, which Monet hated. In April 1883
they moved to a house in Giverny, Eure, in
Haute-Normandie, where he planted a large garden
which he painted for the rest of his life. Monet
and Hoschedé married in 1892.

In the 1880s and 1890s, Monet began "series"
painting — paintings of one subject in
varying light and viewpoints. His first series is
of Rouen Cathedral from different points of view
and at different times of the day. Twenty views of
the cathedral were exhibited at the Durand-Ruel
gallery in 1895. He also made a series of
paintings of haystacks.


Monet was exceptionally fond of painting
controlled nature — his own garden, his
water lilies, his pond, and his bridge. He also
painted up and down the banks of the Seine.

Between 1883 and 1908, Monet travelled to the
Mediterranean and painted many landscapes and
seascapes such as Bordighera. Landmarks were
another a subject for Monet in the Mediterranean.

His wife Alice died in 1911 and his son Jean died
in 1914.

Cataracts formed on his eyes for which he
underwent two surgeries in 1923.

He died December 5, 1926 and is buried in the
Giverny church cemetery.

In 2004, London, the Parliament, Effects of Sun in
the Fog (Le Parlement, Effet de Brouillard)
(1904), sold for over United States dollar|US$20
million.

==References==
*
http://www.accents-n-art.com/artists/claude-monet-
biography.html Claude Monet's Biography
* http://www.triada.bg/Gallery/Monet/Monetbio.htm
A Monet biography
*
http://www.fondation-monet.com/uk/biographie/index
.html Biography at Foundation Claude Monet à
Girerny
* http://www.allaboutartists.com/bios/monet.html
All About Artists biography of Monet

==External links==
commons|Claude Monet
* http://monet.uffs.net Claude Monet Images
*
http://www.insecula.com/recherche/default.html?typ
e=0&mot=monet Claude Monet
* http://www.artofmonet.com Art of Monet Web
Gallery and Resource
* http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/monet/
Monet page at Webmuseum
*
http://search.famsf.org:8080/search.shtml?keywords
=Monet Monet images at Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco