Claude Monet The Grand Canal

Monet was a French artist and a leading member of the Impressionist group of painters.

Claude-Oscar Monet was born in Paris, but spent his childhood in Le Havre where his father was a merchant. There he met a local artist, Eugène Boudin, who encourage him to become a landscape painter.

In 1859, Monet went to Paris to study at the Académie Suisse, where he became close friends with a fellow student, Camille Pissarro. Between 1860 and 1862 Monet served in Algeria as a conscript. He returned to Paris where he met most of the major artists of the era including Renoir, Cézanne, Whistler and Manet.