Hoschedé Blanche Monet

At Giverny, home of French Impressionist painter Claude Monet, Blanche Hoschedé painted for her own pleasure, adopting an almost pure form of Impressionism.  At times it was difficult to distinguish her work from Monet’s, especially during her first years in Giverny when she sometimes carried Monet’s easel and canvases on a wheel-barrow.  Then after helping him get situated, she would set her own easel and paint.  In fact, most of her work was done “en plein-aire” because she did not have an atelier, and many of her scenes were of Monet’s garden and its surroundings.

Monet, who became her father-in-law, took an interest in her career, giving her palette, brushes and paint.  In 1888, while in Antibes, he encouraged Blanche to submit a work to the Paris Salon.  And writing in a letter from Italy to Alice he inquired: “Is Blanche still painting and am I going to find her in progress?”

The Hoschedé Monet family shared a lot of moments with members of the colony of American painters who visited Giverny.  Blanche also painted alongside with John Leslie Breck and Theodore Earl Butler.  She had a romance with John Leslie Breck, which was halted by Claude Monet.  Consequently, John Leslie Breck left Giverny in 1892 after Theodore Earl Butler’s Monet-approved marriage to Blanche’s sister, Suzanne.

In 1897, Blanche married Claude Monet’s eldest son, Jean, and they lived in Rouen and Beaumont-le-Roger until 1913.  She painted meadow landscapes along the Risle’s river and also tree scenes with poplars and pines.

Upon her husband’s death in 1914, she moved back to Giverny with Claude Monet.  With him, she first went to the house of French President Georges Clemenceau in the southern part of France in Saint-Vincent-du-Jar for one week in October of 1921.  Doing paintings of the house, garden and sea, she returned in 1927, 1928 and 1929.

Clemenceau called Blanche "The Blue Angel" because she spent her time taking care of Claude Monet until his last days, and during his illness, she gave up painting until after Monet’s death.

Most of her works were done in Giverny and around Rouen.  She painted in Giverny from 1883 to 1897 and then from 1926 to 1947.  She eventually decided to have a solo show at Bernheim Jeune, in 1931.