Claude Monet Timeline (2024)

Claude Monet is one of the most famous artists of all time and his work is synonymous with Impressionism. After his passing, in 1926, Monet left behind more than 2000 works, and there would be many more if he had not destroyed at least 500 works he viewed as insufficient! This timeline explores the main events that marked the artist’s prolific career.

1840

• November 14, Oscar-Claude Monet is born in Paris, France.

1845

• Monet’s family moves to the seaside town of Le Havre, in Normandy.

1856

• Executes pencil sketches of sailing ships and starts to draw and sell caricatures.
• Becomes friends with Eugéne Boudin, a landscape painter known for his scenes of northern French coastal towns. Monet accompanies Boudin on his painting expeditions and is encouraged to paint outdoors.

1857 – 1858

• Loses his mother, Louise-Justine Aubrée Monet.
• Continues drawing and takes art lessons.

1859-1861

• Moves to Paris to join the then-avant-garde Academy Suisse, where he meets fellow artist Camille Pissarro. He is also introduced to the Barbizon-school artists, Charles Daubigny and Constant Troyon, who championed outdoor painting.
• During this time Monet frequents the Louvre, where he forms a habit of painting from life rather than copying old masters.

1861-1862

• Serves in the Algerian cavalry, an experience that influences his use of light and color.
• Contracts typhoid fever and returns to Le Havre where he paints again with his friend Boudin. He also continues studying with Dutch landscape artist, Johan Jongkind.

1862-1863

• Spends time in the progressive art studio of Charles Gleyre in Paris where he meets Jean Frédéric Bazille, Auguste Renoir and probably Alfred Sisley, all of them Gleyre’s students.
• Visits the majestic forest of Fontainebleau for the first time and captures nature directly. This is possible due to the recent innovation in tubes and portable easels. He also starts his lifelong practice of returning to the same spot to capture it repeatedly under different light conditions.

1864

• Stays in Honfleur with Bazille, then with Boudin and Jongkind.

1865

• The Paris Salon accepts two of Monet’s seascapes for exhibition, one of them is Pointe de la Hève at Low Tide.
• Works on his seminal painting Luncheon on the Grass, named after Manet’s notorious painting of the same name, ultimately leaving it unfinished. While not provocative in its subject matter, Monet’s massive composition reflects his interest in representing modern life instead of historical or romantic subject matter.
• Meets his future wife, Camille and paints her frequently.

1866

• Moves to the outskirts of Paris, on the edge of the Fontainebleau forest, which turns increasingly popular among artists.
• Works on the large-scale painting Women in the Garden (1866-1867) featuring his future wife Camille Doncieux as the sole model. This painting exemplifies the artist’s first exercises in portraying the effects of outdoor light on his subject matter. The painting is rejected by the Paris Salon, which leaves Monet devastated. This rejection is soon followed by other negative responses to his work.

1867-1869

• In 1867 Monet’s first child, Jean, is born. While staying with his aunt, he also paints The Beach at Sainte-Adresse which reflects a change in style as he captures the vitality and movement of the scene rather than focusing on the details. This painting would later be included in the 1876 Impressionist exhibition.
• Paints outdoors with Pierre-Auguste Renoir laying the foundation for Impressionism.

1870

• Next to his wife and son, takes refuge in England during the Franco-Prussian War. While in London he visits museums and gets acquainted with the work of John Constable and J.M.W. Turner, which influenced his use of light. Here he starts painting emblematic scenes such as Westminster Bridge and spends more time with his close friend Pissarro, also in London at the time.
• Pissarro and Monet meet one of the most influential art dealers of all time, Paul Durand-Ruel, largely credited for promoting Modern Art and the Impressionist style that Monet later followed. Durand-Ruel would also become Monet’s long-lasting dealer.

1871

• Moves to Zaandam, in the Netherlands, where he paints canals, boats and windmills. From this period the painting Port of Zaandam stands out for its abstract treatment of water.
• Later, returns to France, settling in Argenteuil, near Paris, where he forms a significant friendship with Édouard Manet whom he met years before. The two friends influenced each other over time.
• Somewhere before 1872, Monet is also introduced to Japanese prints which turn into a long-lasting influence.

1872

• Paints Impression, Sunrise, a composition that later gives name to the Impressionist movement.

1874

• As part of the efforts to find alternate routes to the restricting Paris salon system, Monet, Pissarro and Renoir organize a group exhibition at the vacated studio of photographer and caricaturist Nadar, which later is known as the first Impressionist exhibition. The event is followed by seven more independent exhibitions between 1874 and 1886, with Monet participating in a total of five.
• Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, is largely criticized for its unfinished appearance and loose handling of composition. Subsequently, after the derisive words written by journalist Louis Leroy about the artwork, the artists start to call themselves Impressionists.

1876

• Works on a series of paintings featuring Gare Saint-Lazare, in Paris. This group of paintings is regarded as Monet’s first large-scale series depicting the same subject under different light conditions.

1878

• Monet’s second son, Michel, is born.

1879

• Camille Doncieux Monet passes away. Monet paints her on her deathbed.
• From this moment on, there is another shift in style. Monet focuses more on the flux of time and the changing nature of the atmosphere.

1883

• Next to Alice Hoschedé, whom he met while married to Camille, and their combined eight children, moves to Giverny, initially without the famous gardens. At the time Giverny was a sleepy town near Paris with only 300 inhabitants.
• Starts working on a series of thirty paintings of haystacks in a field near his house at Giverny portraying them at different times of the day. This is the first group of paintings Monet exhibits as a series in Durand-Ruel’s gallery, in Paris.

1890

• Buys the house at Giverny and starts creating his famous gardens which largely inspired his work during the next three decades.

1892 – 1894

• In 1892, he marries Alice Hoschedé.
• Between 1892 and 1983 rents a room across Rouen Cathedral where he kept more than thirty canvases and moved from one to the next as the light shifted on the Cathedral’s facade. In 1894 he reworks the paintings in his studio, in Giverny, adding the final touches.
• During this time, he also buys the land in front of his home at Giverny. He builds the emblematic Japanese-style garden there and designs a huge pond filled with water lilies, which turns into the artist’s most famous motif.

1895

• Exhibits twenty of his Rouen Cathedral paintings at Durand-Ruel’s Gallery.

1899 -1904

• Starts the famous series of Water Lilies paintings in which he portrays the changing images of his beloved pond, in Giverny, at varied hours of morning, day and evening. While also capturing the bridge or sky, he ultimately concentrated solely on the pond.

1908

• Starts working on a series of thirty-seven paintings portraying the canals and palaces of Venice focusing on ten different motifs.
• Destroys fifteen of the Water Lilies paintings he was working on for an upcoming exhibition due to his dissatisfaction with them.

1911

• Alice Hoschedé Monet passes away.

1915

• While half-blind due to acute cataracts, he begins working on Grandes Décorations, a series of monumental–scale Water Lilies paintings. Some of the painting from this series was offered to the French State on the day that followed the WWI Armistice as a symbol of peace. The works are installed at The Orangerie Museum, in Paris, in 1927, a few months after Monet’s death. The installation followed in detail the artist’s plan which consisted of an immersive elliptical display.

1926

• December 5: Claude Monet dies in his beloved Giverny.

Other Interesting Facts:

• During the first stages of his career, Monet faced financial hardships and a lack of recognition. He even tried to kill himself once by jumping off a bridge into the Seine.
• Advocated for painting en plein air and had extensive botanical knowledge. However, early on, he was also fascinated by the manifestations of modern urban life.
• Played a key role in organizing the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874.
• Destroyed many artworks over his life, with researchers discovering at least 250 of them were Water Lilies paintings, which he started painting around 1899.
• Monet’s style was influenced by cataracts in his later years, leading to a redder palette and more abstract forms.
• He was friends with some of the most influential artists of the time and painted alongside many of them.
• He enjoyed recognition during the last years of his life and was particularly popular amongst American art collectors.
• Much like his contemporaries, he was influenced by Japanese art and landscape design.
• He was known for painting the same scene multiple times to capture the effects of changing light and seasons.
• The Japanese bridge and water lilies in his Giverny garden are iconic subjects that he focused on almost entirely during the last years of his life.
• His later works are seen as precursors to Abstract Expressionism.