Claude Monet: 1840-1926

To coincide with an exhibition of the paintings and drawings of impressionist Claude Monet opening in July at the Art Institute of Chicago, Thames and Hudson and the Art Institute are copublishing a lavish volume devoted to the artist's life and work. Claude Monet 1840-1926 features 227 color reproductions of 161 works in the show representing stages in his career, documentary photos of the artist and his family and a month-by-month chronology of events in his life written by Charles F. Stuckey, a leading Monet scholar at the institute. The book documents and analyzes Monet's formal achievements, including his exploration of light, his movement toward abstraction with the late water-lily paintings and his role in the artistic and social community of his day. ($29.95 paper ISBN 0-86559-134-2; cloth $50 -135-0)