Oscar Claude Monet is considered the archetypal Impressionist, with his devotion to painting the transient effects of light and color "en plein air" unwaveringly throughout his long career. Appropriately, it is one of his pictures, Impression: Sunrise, which gave the group of artists painting in this style its name.

Born in Paris, Monet attended L’Academie Suisse from 1859-60 and subsequently enrolled in the studio of Glenyre, where he met Renoir and Sisley, with whom