Biography
Blanche Hoschedé Monet was born in Paris, November 10, 1865, the second daughter of Ernest and Alice Hoschedé. Ernest was businesses man but also an art collector of impressionist paintings. In 1876, he asked Claude Monet to paint the round drawing room at the Chateau de Rottembourg at Montgeron. Two years later Ernest Hoschedé went bankrupt. He fled to Paris. The Hoschedé and Monet families moved to Vétheuil, during that period Camille (Claude Monet’s spouse) died in 1879. The relationship between Claude Monet and Alice Hoschedé became “official.” They moved to Poissy in 1881 and finally settled in Giverny in 1883. Claude Monet married Alice Hoschedé in 1892.
Blanche became immediately fond of Claude Monet. She was eleven when she discovered the art of painting. She obviously spent long hours in Claude Monet’s atelier but also in Manet’s. Claude Monet rented a summer house in Pourville (summer of 1882) and Blanche started to paint next to him.
Blanche became Monet's assistant and pupil . She often carried Claude Monet’s easel, canvases on a wheel barrow, and then set her own easel and painted. Monet took an interest in Blanche works providing her with her palettes and brushes. While in Italy, Claude Monet wrote a letter to Alice, “Is Blanche still painting and am I going to find her in progress?”
Her work was done in” plein air” as she did not have an atelier. Blanche has been painting for several years when Claude Monet came to depict her standing before her easel, in 1887 but also in 1892. In the last painting you can see Blanche Hoschede in the foreground and in the background her sister, Suzanne with Theodore Earl Butler at his easel. Claude Monet in January of 1888, while in Antibes, had encouraged Blanche to submit a work to the Salon. The Hoschedé Monet family shared a lot of time within the American colony. 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 marriage to Blanche’s sister, Suzanne; a marriage that e approved by Claude Monet
Theodore Robinson in his diaries said about Blanche, on July 3th 1992.
“I saw some things by Mlle. Blanche she has improved greatly since I saw her work last-.a spring landscape, sold to Potter Palmer quite charming – Monet said she ought to work away from him – they both like to work together”
Blanche eventually married Claude Monet’s eldest son, Jean, in 1897. They lived in Rouen and Beaumont-le-Roger until 1913, when her husband passed away. She painted landscapes such as meadows along the Risle’s river but also Poplars and Pines. Upon her husband’s death in 1914, she moved back to Giverny with Claude Monet. She went to Clemenceau’s House in the southern part of France in Saint-Vincent-du-Jar with Claude Monet for one week in October of 1921. She returned in 1927, 1928 and 1929 and did some paintings of the house, garden and the sea. She was called by the French prime minister, Georges Clemenceau, "The Blue Angel", as she spent her time taking care of Claude Monet until his last days.
Blanche made the “sacrifice” of giving up her work as a painter to become the companion and stepfather’s house keeper. Blanche tolerated to the end Claude Monet’s anxiety, his catararate (at the age of 83 Claude Monet recovered partially a normal vision after an operation), the war and the huge project of commissioned work for the Orangerie, in Paris. Claude Monet said, “How kind she is, and how maddening I must be to everyone”
Blanche gave up painting until after Claude 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.
She adopted an almost pure form of impressionism. She painted for her own pleasure. At times it was difficult to distinguish her work from Monet’s especially during her first period in Giverny. The palette, brushes, paint and canvases came from Claude Monet. She then painted Claude Monet’s garden, and its surroundings.
Solo Exhibitions:
1927- Gallery Bernheim-Jeune Paris: Blanche Hoschedé (November 7-18 1927)
1931- Gallery Bernheim-Jeune Paris: Blanche Hoschedé Monet (March 9-20 1931)
1942- Gallery Daber, Paris: Blanche Hoschedé (October 16- November 7 1942)
1947 Galerie d’Art Drouot Provence, Paris: Blanche Hoschedé Monet (March 14- April 14 1947)
Salon des Independants
1905,1906,1907,1929,1930,1931,1932,1933,1934,1935,1936,1954.
Salon de la Société des Artistes Rouennais : 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935.
Post Mortem Exhibitions:
1954- Galerie Zak, Paris, November 19-December 3 1954.
1957- Vernon, Blanche-Hoschedé-Monet, June 16-23 1957.
1959- Museum in Rouen: Blanche Hoschedé Monet, Henry Ottman, April 11-May 11 1959.
1960- Charles E. Slatkin Galleries, New-York: Claude Monet and the Giverny Artists March 22-April 23 1960.
1988- Modern Art Museum Ibaraki, Kyoto, Fukushima: Monet and his Friends, November 1988- February 1989..
1991- AG Poulain, Vernon: Blanche Hoschedé Monet, April 6- June 2 1991
2001- AG Poulain Artists of Giverny.
2007- Columbus Museum of Art, Marmottan Museum Paris.
2010 Solo Exhibition in Louviers France
Works in Museum:
Albi, Toulouse Lautrec Museum : The Port in Saint Jean-Cap-Ferrat.
Giverny, Fondation Claude Monet: Grainstack in the Winter.
Paris, Musée Clemenceau Marmottan: Along the River, Sorel-Moussel’s House
Rouen, Beaux-Ars Museum: Poplars along the River,Pivoines,,Claude Monet’s Garden.
Toulouse, Augustins’s Museum Claude Monet’s house and the Garden”
Vannes, Musée de la Cohue : Le Bassin temps gris
Vernon, House of Claude Monet, l’Etang de Giverny,Beach in Normandy, The Cabbage.
Books and Exhibition’s catalogue
1921 G. Geffroy: Claude Monet; his life and works,
1961 J-P Hoschedé: Blanche Hoschedé Monet, Impressionist Painter\, published by Lecerf, Rouen.
1960- Charles E. Slatkin Galleries, New-York: Claude Monet and the Giverny Artists March 22-April 23 1960
1970-G. Clemenceau: letters to a friend, 1923-1929 published by Gallimard, Paris.
1988-J-B Duroselle: Clemenceau Published by Fayard, 1988
G. Geffroy: Claude Monet; his life and works.
1991- AG Poulain, Vernon: Blanche Hoschedé Monet, an artist of Giverny, April 6- June 2 1991.
1993-Monets Giverny, an Impressionist Colony by William Gerdts, Abbeville Pres
2007- “In Monet’s Garden, Artists and the lure of Giverny”
by Charles Stuckey.
A movie is coming soon.
Claude Monet will be played by Gérard Depardieu
Blanche Hoschedé Monet will be played by Sandrine Bonnaire
George Clemenceau will be played by Michel Galabru
Director Chantal Picault
www.art-giverny.com
