Wednesday, Sep. 14, 2016

06:30 PM – 07:30 PM
US/Central

Presented by author Ross King

The new book Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies is a portrait of the legendary artist and his greatest achievement. Monet is perhaps the world’s most beloved artist, and among all his creations, the paintings of the water lilies in his garden at Giverny are the most famous.

In Mad Enchantment, Ross King tells the story behind the creation of the Water Lilies, as the horrors of World War I came closer to Paris and Giverny, and a new generation of artists, led by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, challenged the achievements of Impressionism. By early 1914, French newspapers were reporting that Monet had retired his brushes. He had lost his beloved wife, Alice, and his eldest son, Jean. His famously acute vision—what Paul Cézanne called “the most prodigious eye in the history of painting”—was threatened by cataracts. Yet despite ill health, self-doubt, and advancing age, Monet began painting again on a more ambitious scale than ever.

A book signing follows the talk.