cover image Claude Monet: Life at Giverny

Claude Monet: Life at Giverny

Claire Joyes. Vendome Press, $17.5 (151pp) ISBN 978-0-86565-053-4

Giverny was the French country home where Monet spent his last 43 years painting and cultivating the gardens that would inspire many of his greatest works. Joyes describes the artist's days at Giverny, his routines and work habits, his fiery temper and love of life, his financial worries before Impressionism became popular, his family (Alice Hoschede and her children, deserted by her husband, lived at Giverny with the widowed Monet and his children; they married in 1892) and the friends and artists who visited, including Rodin, Cezanne, Sisley and Cassatt. The grounds, which went to ruin after Monet's death in 1926, are now restored and open to the public, looking much as they did during Monet's lifetime. Color photographs of the gardens and reproductions of Monet's work grace the pages of this portrait of the artist. November