French Impressionist Painter, 1840-1926 Claude Oscar Monet (14 November 1840 C 5 December 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting. Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 on the fifth floor of 45 rue Laffitte, in the ninth arrondissement of Paris . He was the second son of Claude-Adolphe and Louise-Justine Aubree Monet, both of them second-generation Parisians. On 20 May 1841, he was baptised into the local church parish, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette as Oscar-Claude. In 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy. His father wanted him to go into the family grocery store business, but Claude Monet wanted to become an artist. His mother was a singer. On the first of April 1851, Monet entered the Le Havre secondary school of the arts. He first became known locally for his charcoal caricatures, which he would sell for ten to twenty francs. Monet also undertook his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard, a former student of Jacques-Louis David. On the beaches of Normandy in about 1856/1857 he met fellow artist Eugene Boudin who became his mentor and taught him to use oil paints. Boudin taught Monet "en plein air" (outdoor) techniques for painting. On 28 January 1857 his mother died. He was 16 years old when he left school, and went to live with his widowed childless aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre. After several difficult months following the death of Camille on 5 September 1879, a grief-stricken Monet (resolving never to be mired in poverty again) began in earnest to create some of his best paintings of the 19th century. During the early 1880s Monet painted several groups of landscapes and seascapes in what he considered to be campaigns to document the French countryside. His extensive campaigns evolved into his series' paintings. Camille Monet had become ill with tuberculosis in 1876. Pregnant with her second child she gave birth to Michel Monet in March 1878. In 1878 the Monets temporarily moved into the home of Ernest Hosched, (1837-1891), a wealthy department store owner and patron of the arts. Both families then shared a house in Vetheuil during the summer. After her husband (Ernest Hoschede) became bankrupt, and left in 1878 for Belgium, in September 1879, and while Monet continued to live in the house in Vetheuil; Alice Hosched helped Monet to raise his two sons, Jean and Michel, by taking them to Paris to live alongside her own six children. They were Blanche, Germaine, Suzanne, Marthe, Jean-Pierre, and Jacques. In the spring of 1880 Alice Hosched and all the children left Paris and rejoined Monet still living in the house in Vetheuil. In 1881 all of them moved to Poissy which Monet hated. From the doorway of the little train between Vernon and Gasny he discovered Giverny. In April 1883 they moved to Vernon, then to a house in Giverny, Eure, in Upper Normandy, where he planted a large garden where he painted for much of the rest of his life. Following the death of her estranged husband, Alice Hosched married Claude Monet in 1892.   Related Paintings of Claude Monet :. | The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil | Champ de coquelicots a Giverny | Woman Seated Under the Willows | Portrait of Marguerite Khnopff | Lavacourt: Sunshine and Snow |
Related Artists:
School of Fontainebleau
ca 1550
William John Hennessy
(July 11, 1839 - December 27, 1917) was an Irish artist. William John Hennessy was born in Thomastown, County Kilkenny in 1839. His father, John Hennessy, was forced to leave Ireland in 1848 as a result of his involvement in the Young Ireland movement. He landed in Canada and settled in New York. William, his mother Catherine, and brother joined their father there in 1849. He gained admittance to the National Academy of Design in 1854 and exhibitioned his first works there. Hennessy developed a skill in wood engraving and was hired to illustrate the works of renowned poets, including that of Tennyson, Longfellow and Whittier. As an American he became the co-founder of the Artists Fund Society, and an honorary member of the American Society of Painters in Watercolours. In 1870 he moved to London where he became a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 1902. Between 1879 and 1907 the Royal Hibernian Academy displayed eight of his paintings.
constant permeke
Constant Permeke (Dutch pronunciation: July 31, 1886 ?C January 4, 1952) was a Belgian painter and sculptor who is considered the leading figure of Flemish expressionism. Permeke was born in Antwerp but when he was six years old the family moved to Ostend, where his father became curator of the Municipal Museum of Arts. Permeke went to school in Bruges from 1903 until 1906, when he was drafted into the Belgian army. He served in a university company with whom he settled in Sint-Martens-Latem. After his military service ended in March 1908, Permeke returned to Ostend where he roomed together with another artist, Gustave De Smet but in 1909 he returned to Latem where he lived as a recluse. His work of this period is characterized by his heavy brush. In 1912 Permeke married Maria Delaere and the newlyweds settled in Ostend. His work from this period gains its expressive force through muted tonality and brutal forms. When World War I started, Permeke was mobilized and during the defense of Antwerp he was wounded in action near the town of Duffel. His wounds forced him to be evacuated to the United Kingdom where he was in hospital at South Hillwood. After his release from hospital he was reunited with his family in Folkestone, where his son John was born. In 1916 he moved to Chardstock in Devonshire and started painting again, mostly colorful English landscapes. After the end of the war, the Permeke family returned to Ostend in 1919. In contrast to the happy time in Devonshire, the harsh reality of the worker's life turns Permeke's work back to a gloomier mood as he mainly paints the harsh fisherman's life. In 1921 Permeke was able to exhibit his work in Antwerp and in Paris. Between 1922 and 1924, Permeke regularly went to Astene, in order to cooperate with Frits Van den Berghe. In 1926 Permeke went to Vevey in Switzerland where he mainly painted mountain scenes. In 1929 he moved to Jabbeke. During this period he changed his subject: instead of the fisherman and the sea he now focused on the farmer and his land. During this period, Permeke was enormously productive with works like "Gouden Oogst" (1935), "De Grote Marine" (1935), "Moederschap" (1936), "Het Afscheid" (1948), "Dagelijks Brood" (1950). Starting in 1937 Permeke tried his hand at sculpting as well. As a sculptor, Permeke tried to isolate the human figure in monumental efforts. "De Zaaier" (1939), "Niobe" (1946) and "De Drie Gratiën" (1949) are good examples of this period. During World War II, Permeke was forbidden to paint by the German occupiers as his art was seen by them as Entartete Kunst. Privately, things were even worse as his son Paul was arrested and sent to Germany as a forced labourer. After the war, Permeke was appointed director of the National higher Institute and of the Royal Academy in Antwerp but after only one year he offered his resignation. In 1947-1948, Permeke had a big retrospective exhibition in Paris but his happiness at the return of his son was soon shattered when in 1948 his wife died. Emotionally scarred and ailing, Permeke had to be nursed by his daughter.