1840–1926
Claude Monet
Paris, Le Havre, Giverny
Claude Monet was born in Paris in 1840 and grew up on the coast at Le Havre, where he first learned to paint out of doors. In 1883 he settled in Giverny, a village on the Seine in Normandy, and lived there until his death in 1926.
The same subject, again and again
At Giverny he painted what lay around the house: the poppy fields, the stacks of wheat after the harvest, the river at dawn. He often returned to one subject at different hours and seasons, to paint the light rather than the thing it fell on.
The water garden
From 1893 he made a pond beside the house, planted it with water lilies and lined it with willows and irises. For the last thirty years of his life it was his main subject, painted on canvases that grew ever larger.
This room
The eight paintings here belong to the Art Institute of Chicago, which shares their images openly. They are hung at their true sizes in one room you can walk through.