It's About Time : Women & Garderns -- Claude Monet 1840-1926

Claude Monet (French artist, 1840-1926) A Woman Reading

When Monet was about 43, at the beginning of May 1883, Monet & his large family rented a house & 2 acres from a local landowner. The house was situated near the main road between the towns of Vernon & Gasny at Giverny. There was a barn that doubled as a painting studio, orchards & a small garden. The house was close enough to the local schools for the children to attend.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French artist, 1841-1919) Monet Painting In His Garden In Argenteuil 1873

The surrounding landscape at Giverny offered an endless array of suitable motifs for Monet's work. The family worked & built up the gardens.

John Singer Sargent (American ex-patriot artist, 1865-1925) Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood 1885

Monet's fortunes began to change for the better as his dealer had increasing success in selling his paintings. By November 1890, Monet was prosperous enough to buy the Giverny house, the surrounding buildings & the land for his gardens. Within a few years by 1899 Monet built a greenhouse & a 2nd studio, a spacious building, lit with skylights.

Monet was fond of painting controlled nature such as his own gardens in Giverny, with its water lilies, pond, & bridge. He also painted up & down the banks of the Seine. Beginning in the 1880s & 1890s, through the end of his life in 1926, Monet worked on "series" paintings, in which a subject was depicted in varying light & weather conditions painted from different points of view & at different times of the day.