Claude Monet, French - (1840-1926)
Born in Paris November 14, 1840, CLAUDE OSCAR MONET spent his childhood in Le Havre, France. Even at that early age, Monet was able to visualize the light and atmosphere and render them instantly with his hand.
Monet was one of the chief organizers and exhibitors at the first Impressionism Show held in 1874 at Nadar’s Studio. A few of the thirty artists were: Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, Berthe Morisot and Eugene Boudin. The common thread for the artists was rejection by the Salon judges and opposition to official art. Monet himself recognized that he was using a technique different from the established norm. In his attempt to capture a transitory moment on canvas with his every brush stroke, and his every color choice, Monet worked at a frantic pace...faster then what he called a sketch. In his own words, his objective was to create an "impression" of what he was seeing.
