Born into the Parisian bourgeoisie in 1840, Monet's father, a wholesale grocer, moved the family to Le Havre when Monet was five years old. Monet began painting en plein air, encouraged by the landscape painter Eugène Boudin, whom he met as a teenager. He described his experience by saying, "Color is my daily obsession, joy, and torment."

Arriving in Paris in 1859, Monet studied at the Académie Suisse. After his military service in North Africa, he trained in the studio of Charles Gleyre, where he met Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Frédéric Bazille. The lessons on classical art had little impact; Monet and his friends preferred painting in the forest of Fontainebleau, on the lands of the Barbizon school painters. The group of young artists was strongly inspired by Manet's "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe" (1862-63). During these years, Monet and his circle began actively protesting against the conservatism of the Salon. Nevertheless, he exhibited his early works, such as "Entrance to the Seine at Honfleur" (1865), at the Salon and caught the attention of Émile Zola.

In 1870, fleeing the Franco-Prussian War, Monet took refuge in London, where he discovered the magic of William Turner. In 1874, Monet joined a group exhibition at the premises of the photographer Nadar in Paris. He presented "Impression, Sunrise," a painting considered the manifesto of a new style: Impressionism. The group's exhibitions continued until 1886, but Monet had already moved on. Although supported by the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, he struggled to make a living from his painting and faced very difficult years before settling in Giverny in 1883. His personal life was also complicated: he lost his first wife (and mother of his two sons) in 1879. He remarried Alice Hoschedé, who had six children of her own. Success came to Monet in the 1890s thanks to Durand-Ruel, who exported Impressionist painting to the United States. Monet's work expanded, and he undertook series of landscapes that would mark the history of Impressionism, notably the Rouen Cathedral series in 1894.

Settled in Giverny, in the Eure department, in a house he had acquired, Monet spent the latter part of his long life there and dedicated much of his work to his garden. Notably, he created over 250 versions of the Water Lilies, a series of which was donated to the French state (Musée de l'Orangerie). He devoted himself to this work during World War I and continued until his death in 1926.

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