Found by Paul Simadas and posted on the Artists of the First World War Facebook page on 22nd October 2026
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| Self portrait |
Claude Monet was born on 14th November 1840.
Although he did not serve during the First World War, Claude Monet had experience of army life, having served in the French Army spending time in Algeria with the 1st Regiment of Chasseurs d'Afrique in 1861–1862,
He was 73 years old when WW1 broke out and remained at his home and studio in Giverny throughout the war, refusing to evacuate even when German forces drew close.Instead of active service. He focused on painting his Water Lilies and Weeping Willows series as a tribute to France, supplied vegetables from his garden to local wounded soldiers, and later donated his monumental Les Grandes Décorations panels to the French state.
Claude Monet was deeply troubled by the Great War as he continued to paint during the conflict. He eventually decided to create a grand series of new water lily paintings, which he presented to France to memorialise the end of World War One in 1918, intending them to be a symbol of peace and beauty in contrast to the brutality of the conflict. Most, if not all of those paintings, were painted in the garden of his house in Giverny beginning as early as 1906 and continuing on until his death after the Great War.Some of those paintings were permanently housed in the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris and are now displayed in two oval-shaped rooms designed specially for them in order to create an experience of peace and contemplation.
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| Water Lillies |
