Was born in Paris on 14 November 1840. He was the eldest son of a pharmacist who, five years later, moved his family to Le Havre. It was in this city that Monet carried out his first studies and upon showing a precocious inclination towards art, learnt drawing from 1856 to 1858 under the direction of F. J. Ochard. His early leanings were towards caricature in which he became quite famous. But it was with the landscape painter Eugene Boudin, his first maestro, that he learned to love outdoor painting.
In 1859 he travelled to Paris and he spent some time studying the works of Daubigny and Troyon in the Salon. He contacted Troyon through a letter of presentation written by Boudin himself and over the years received much stimulation from him. Later on he decided not to continue with the courses at the Academy and studied by himself, going sometimes quite frequently to the studios of Charles Jacque and the independent Academy of Switzerland, where he became good friends with Pissarro. His knowledge of the paintings of Delacroix and participating in the arguments that occurred at the Beer House on the Rue des Martyrs enriched his cultural patrimony and his artistic experience more that any academic teaching ever could have done.
In 1860 he was called to do his military service and marched to Argel. Taken ill with anaemia, he returned to Le Havre in 1862 where his family paid the “exemption fee” of the military service and he promised to enter the studio of a “serious” painter. In Paris, he went to the studio of Gleyre where he met Bazille, Pierre Auguste Renoir and Sisley, with whom he struck up a friendship that would last for the rest of his life.
At that stage in his life, the most significant discovery was the painting of Edouard Manet at an exhibition in 1863. Those years caused great difficulty with his family, which did not approve of his independent career and denied him all economic help, and Monet worked outdoors in the Fontainbleau woods and along the River Seine as well as in Normandy, receiving help only from painter friends.
In 1866 he became quite successful at the Salon with a portrait of Camila Doncieux with whom he was living at that time.
In Paris, Camila gave birth to a son named Jean. Later as Monet was in a precarious economic condition he married Camila and went to London in search of refuge due to the start of the Franco-Prussian War. That same year his friend Bazille died in combat. He also lived in Holland and Belgium and then returned to Paris. By 1871 his financial position had improved and he rented a house in Argenteuil on the banks of the Seine. The sales dealer in painting, Durand-Ruel, was the only person who believed in the deeper meaning of the quest of Monet and his friends, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro and Cezanne. So with them, and also with Edgar Degas and Morisot, he organized the first collective exhibition of that group, and because of the name of one of Monet`s painting`s – “Impression: The Rising of the Sun” – the group was baptized the Impressionists in 1874. Several of the paintings of the group were sold and later in 1874, 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882 and 1886 they organized more exhibitions. In 1878 Monet abandoned Argenteuil and moved to Vetheuil. Camila was then ill and her health took a turn for the worse after the birth of their second son, Michel. In September 1879 she died. After this he again went in search of impressions, and Poissy, Varengeville, Dieppe, Pourville and Etrart were his favorites places but he decided to establish himself in Giverny, from where he frequently travelled to the south.
During this period his financial position improved considerably, and he obtained great success as well as favorable criticisms and sales whenever he exhibited at the Durand-Ruel or Petit galleries. In 1890 Monet bought the house at Giverny and two years later he married Madame Hoschede. His travels became less frequent although he did travel to Norway in 1895, to London on several occasions, and to Madrid in 1904 to see the paintings of Diego Velazquez. He also made short trips to Venice in 1908 and 1909. Yet most of his time was spent in the organization of an aquatic garden and in the care of his plants and flowers which he painted continuously. These paintings together with the “Water-lilies” which he worked on with deep passion, were forerunners – perhaps without being aware of it – of abstract art. With a certain juvenile impatience, which not even an eye illness managed to dampen, he worked unceasingly on his last canvases until his death in Giverny on 5 December 1926.
