CLAUDE OSCAR MONET  

    Monet was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris, but he spent most of his childhood in Le Havre. There, in his teens, he studied drawing; he also painted seascapes outside with the French painter Eugene Louis Boudin. By 1859 Monet had committed himself to a career as an artist. His experiments in the sketchlike application of bright color became more and more daring, and he cut himself off from the possibility of a successful career supported by the art establishment. Monet gradually refined this technique, and he made many trips to scenic areas of France, to study the most brilliant effects of light and color possible.

    By the mid-1880s Monet, generally regarded as the leader of the impressionist school, had achieved significant recognition and financial security. Despite the boldness of his color and the extreme simplicity of his compositions, he was recognized as a master of meticulous observation.


     In 1890 he was able to purchase some property in the village of Giverny, not far from Paris, and there he began to construct a water garden (now open to the public)-a lily pond arched with a Japanese bridge and overhung with willows and clumps of bamboo. This was the inspiration for many of his paintings in later life. Despite failing eyesight, Monet continued to paint almost up to the time of his death, on December 5, 1926, at Giverny.