Winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize and the Franco-British Society Literary AwardShortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize The Art Book of the Year, The Times A Telegraph, Sunday Times, Financial Times, Economist, Tablet and Evening Standard Book of the Year A magnificent new biography of the founder of Impressionism In the course of a long and exceptionally creative life, Claude Monet revolutionized painting and made some of the most iconic images in western art. Misunderstood and mocked at the beginning of his career, he risked everything to pursue his original vision. Although close to starvation when he invented impressionism on the banks of the Seine in the 1860s-70s, in the following decades he emerged as the powerful leader of the new painting in Paris at one of its most exciting cultural moments. His symphonic series Haystacks, Poplars, and Rouen Cathedral brought wealth and renown. Then he withdrew to paint only the pond in his garden. The late Water Lilies, ignored during