Where can you see Claude Monet in London?

At the National Gallery: The Thames below Westminster and The Water-Lily Pond. Museums move and lend their works, so check before a special journey.

What is Claude Monet's most famous work in London?

The Thames below Westminster, of about 1871, at the National Gallery. The new Houses of Parliament and Westminster Bridge are grey shapes in the mist, and a wooden jetty stands dark in front of them. The embankment he painted from had been open a year.

When and where was Claude Monet born?

On 14 November 1840, at Paris, France. Claude Monet died on 5 December 1926, at Giverny, France, aged about 86.

What is Claude Monet known for?

Painted The Thames below Westminster during his first stay in London. Returned from 1899 to paint the river from a room at the Savoy. The Courtauld Gallery has more of his work a mile away. Claude Monet was a French painter, of Impressionism.

Painter, 1840 to 1926

Claude Monet

Monet came to London in the autumn of 1870 to escape the war with Prussia. He was thirty, had no money, and found a subject he came back to for thirty years: the river in fog.

Born: 1840, Paris, France
Died: 1926, Giverny, France
Movement: Impressionism
In London: 2 works in 1 museum

Where to see Claude Monet in London

Each work with the museum it hangs in. Museums move and lend their works, so check before a special journey.

The National Gallery2 works

The Thames below Westminster
about 1871
The new Houses of Parliament and Westminster Bridge are grey shapes in the mist, and a wooden jetty stands dark in front of them. The embankment he painted from had been open a year.
The Water-Lily Pond
1899
The Japanese footbridge in his garden at Giverny, arching over water so full of lilies and reflections that there is no sky in the picture at all.

The life of Claude Monet

Monet was born in Paris in 1840 and grew up in Le Havre, on the Channel coast. In 1874 he and his friends held their own exhibition, and a critic mocking his Impression, Sunrise called them all Impressionists. Monet spent his life chasing what light does to a thing from one hour to the next, and painted the same subject over and over to catch it: haystacks, poplars, the front of Rouen Cathedral.

In 1883 he settled at Giverny, in Normandy, and made the garden and the lily pond that he painted for the last thirty years of his life. The day after the armistice of 1918 he offered the nation a set of vast Water Lilies. He died at Giverny in 1926, and the Orangerie opened with them the next year.

What to know

Painted The Thames below Westminster during his first stay in London
Returned from 1899 to paint the river from a room at the Savoy
The Courtauld Gallery has more of his work a mile away

Born: 14 November 1840, Paris, France
Died: 5 December 1926, Giverny, France

Claude Monet: common questions

Where can you see Claude Monet in London?: At the National Gallery: The Thames below Westminster and The Water-Lily Pond. Museums move and lend their works, so check before a special journey.
What is Claude Monet's most famous work in London?: The Thames below Westminster, of about 1871, at the National Gallery. The new Houses of Parliament and Westminster Bridge are grey shapes in the mist, and a wooden jetty stands dark in front of them. The embankment he painted from had been open a year.
When and where was Claude Monet born?: On 14 November 1840, at Paris, France. Claude Monet died on 5 December 1926, at Giverny, France, aged about 86.
What is Claude Monet known for?: Painted The Thames below Westminster during his first stay in London. Returned from 1899 to paint the river from a room at the Savoy. The Courtauld Gallery has more of his work a mile away. Claude Monet was a French painter, of Impressionism.