Description
We have all heard of Claude Monet and his wonderful garden at Giverny—the inspiration for so much of his painting in the last decades of his life, including his iconic waterlilies. But Monet was not the only artist to “discover” the glories of Giverny. Many American painters spent summers at Giverny, making it an important art colony. Monet was so disgusted by the influx of admiring artists that he considered moving away! He did not, rather kept himself aloof instead. Nevertheless, several American painters were privileged to know Monet personally. Among the art colony’s early habitués in the 1880s and 1890s were Willard Metcalf, Theodore Robinson, Lilla Cabot Perry and Theodore Butler. A second generation took up residence there in the 1900s. These American impressionists would influence the course of American painting, at home and abroad.
