MONET Immersive on Wall Street NYC

I had never seen one of the artist's immersive presentations before and, having written a deeply researched novel CLAUDE & CAMILLE: A NOVEL OF MONET, I wasn't sure I wanted to go. I am terribly glad I did. The immersive presentation is very moving, and I felt in some way that I was inside the mind and vision of one of the most loved of all artists. It is little known that by the time he finished his great water lily canvases, he was considered not important and old school....and for years L'Orangerie in Paris where the canvases were held had hardly a soul to visit them. Eventually people rediscovered them, and the smaller ones sell for many millions. I don't know how long this New York show will be open, but it's worth going.

CLAUDE & CAMILLE: a novel of MONET

 

It has been a very lovely journey since the debut of my novel CLAUDE AND CAMILLE about Monet when he was young and struggling to sell his first paintings and sustain himself, his impressionist friends, and the obsessive love of his life - his muse and then wife, Camille Doncieux. I am still doing book clubs talks, and the book is still selling well in translation in Italian and German. Many people have written to me and I am so happy that this novel had given them a deeper understanding of what a difficult time it was for the Impressionists. It is available on line and at many museum shops in the U.S. and in Europe. Amazon link: Amazon.com: Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet (9780307463227): Cowell, Stephanie: Books

Meanwhile a fascinating immersive exhibit called IMAGINE MONET will be coming to the United States, Canada, and Europe and  I hope to have more information soon. IMAGINE MONET — Arsenal Contemporary Art

My next book is about a young Edwardian painter in a tender love story between two men in England 1903 called  THE BOY IN THE RAIN. It will be published in 2023 by Regal Press.  It's going to be a wonderful adventure.

It has been a few years since I posted here, but CLAUDE & CAMILLE: A NOVEL OF MONET keeps selling here and in translation, particularly Germany and Italy. April marked ten years since publication so I consider this quite wonderful and want to thank all of my readers.

I am delighted to say that I had finished a new novel about Monet's beloved stepdaughter Blanche, who was a respected artist herself and who stayed at his side in his old age so he could finish his great water lily paintings ... the Grandes Decorations.

I hope to have news of a publisher soon.

The Diary of Berthe Morisot's Daughter has been republished!

I have long wanted to own and read the diary of Julie Manet, Berthe Morisot's only daughter (Berthe married Edouard Manet's brother), but it has been out of print and selling for a great deal of money. To my delight when I looked again, it had been republished. In my own life I grew up with artists in and out the door and thought nothing of it. She did the same. They went over to see their friend Monet in his garden at Giverny and Renoir who was almost an uncle was always around. So now a copy is mine. Available on Amazon and other places. Joy!

BOOKPAGE: "Cowell presents a vivid portrait of Monet’s remarkable career."

SUSAN VREELAND: "Read it with a book of Monet's paintings by your side, and be prepared to marvel, and to weep."

BOOKLIST: “Cowell mines the tempestuous relationship of Monet and his romantic and artistic inspiration with a nimble and discerning command as she indelibly evokes the lush demimonde of nineteenth-century Paris.”

Recommended by PEOPLE MAGAZINE.

buy CLAUDE and CAMILLE
published in English, German, Italian, Polish, Chinese and Portuguese

New novel aboout Degas and Mary Cassatt

A new novel has just been been published about Mary Cassatt and Degas to terrific reviews. Travel back to Paris in the days of the Impressionists! The author is the much acclaimed Robin Oliveira and the publisher is Viking Penguin.

STORY: The young Mary Cassatt never thought moving to Paris after the Civil War was going to be easy, but when, after a decade of work, her submission to the Paris Salon is rejected, Mary's fierce determination wavers. Her father is imploring her to return to Philadelphia to find a husband before it is too late, her sister Lydia is falling mysteriously ill, and worse, Mary is beginning to doubt herself. Then one evening a friend introduces her to Edgar Degas and her life changes forever. Years later she will learn that he had begged the introduction, but in that moment their meeting seems a miracle. So begins the defining period of her life and the most tempestuous of relationships.

Robin's website to buy the novel!
http://robinoliveira.com/i-always-loved-you/the-book.php

Monet's CAMILLE IN A GREEN DRESS now at Met Museum

There's a current exhibition about Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity at the Metropolitan Museum which features Monet's ORIGINAL PAINTING OF CAMILLE IN HER GREEN DRESS. I have never seen it in person as it is from Bremen. So do go see it if you can. The exhibition is open until May 27th, 2013.
http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2013/impressionism-fashion-modernity/introduction

Thanks so much for all the wonderful e-mails about my novel CLAUDE and CAMILLE: A NOVEL OF MONET

Please do browse the seventy posts in this blog!

Please do browse some of the seventy lovingly researched mini-posts in this blog, each about different tiny parts of the lives of the impressionists including Renoir painting Richard Wagner, Berthe Morisot's last letter to her daughter, did Monet's second wife destroy his first wife's (Camille's) letters and diaries, the secret life of Monet's best friend Frederic Bazille, an auction of Renoir's personal papers including his wedding license. Your blog author has taken a break to finish her new novel but yes....there may be another novel about an impressionist in my future as well!

Claude Monet in his early twenties

It is now almost three years since CLAUDE & CAMILLE: A NOVEL OF MONET was first published. In translation, it has traveled to Italy, Germany, Poland, Brazil, China and onward! Thank you to the tens of thousands of people who have read it! And to everyone who has loved this blog!

update on this site and my novel about Monet

Apologies! I have not had time to update this site for rather a while, but please do look at all the old posts as they are all relevant and interesting and sometimes unknown aspects of those gifted group of men, the Impressionists. They were called Impressionists by a quirk of fate; an art critic who attended their first exhibition took the name from Monet's Impression: Sunrise which the critic said was very much like a design for bad wallpaper...and of course one can buy that wallpaper today!

News is that I am still talking about my novel CLAUDE & CAMILLE: A NOVEL OF MONET this year and in 2013, and dates can be found on my website. I am speaking in New Jersey twice this June and in Manhattan in July, etc. Other news for those in the New York City area is that the Botanical Gardens has replicated part of the Giverny Gardens and it is gorgeous. Do go if you can!

the almost truthful letters a young Impressionist sent home

One of the frequent reports of life among the young painters who would be one day called the Impressionists are the letters sent home to his mother and father by Monet's best friend, the painter Jean Frédéric Bazille. Bazille came from a well-to-do family in Montpellier and moved to Paris to study medicine. After telling his family repeatedly that his medical exams were once more postponed, he confessed all he wanted to do was paint! (It was a big distraction to study anatomy when Renoir and Monet and Manet and Pissarro were in the other room of the studio talking painting!) From his letters we learn something of the joyous life of these young men, and Bazille's constant avoidance of his parents' attempts to marry him off. He was a very good person and rushed off to fight for France in the Franco-Prussian wars to a disastrous outcome.

This self-portrait from the Chicago Art Institute is rather strange; he was only about 24 or 25, and painted himself at least fifteen years older. Or perhaps it is the tension of staring at himself in the mirror or some discomfort about himself which made him paint that way. Various paintings and photos of him show him as dashingly handsome, humble while painting at his easel, and very much the formidable son of a great family in still another. The first drafts of my novel CLAUDE & CAMILLE featured Bazille as the main character; he later moved to third major character. I have many books about him, perhaps all that have been published in English and a few in French.

Reading about Pissarro's family

I arrived at the Clark Museum to speak about my novel the week after they took down their exquisite exhibit Pissarro's People, but I did get a copy of the excellent exhibition book. I was particularly struck at how much he loved his children and with what an atmosphere of unconditional love he raised them. He lost three of them before his own death; Jeanne, called Minette (shown right), died when she was nine. There are many portraits of her, from an enchanting little girl to a somber and sickly one. I don't know how she died or if any record is left. It was devastating for Pissarro and his wife.

The exhibition book is a fine portrait of the man as well as the painter...this most tender, humble painter! I would have loved to have known him.

Monet and storms at sea

The painter Turner, it is said, had himself tied to a mast to observe the violence of a storm at sea. Monet had his own near disaster. Standing on a rock to paint and very involved, he was suddenly swept into the churning sea by a wave. He was a Normandy man and a strong swimmer but his canvases and palette and paints rushed about him in the water. He climbed to safety with a beard tinged with colorful oil paint; one could say that that day Monet was himself a Monet. As today we are waiting for the hurricane to approach New York City, I felt inspired to post one of his paintings of storms! He did not do as many as Turner, though!

The Clark Museum in Williamstown Mass. is hosting a Pissarro exhibition through October 2nd...and sadly I won't see it, because I am not speaking there on my Monet novel until October 9th. I love Pissarro with all my heart! If someone does go, please do leave a comment here. Here is the url for the museum: CLARK MUSEUM. And let me once more recommend Pissarro's Letters to his Son Lucien.

a new documentary on Monet: MONET'S PALATE

I am always surprised and delighted at how many things one can discover on the web, and the other day I came across a Facebook page for this documentary about Monet's food and gardens and paintings, featuring many great chefs with an introduction by Meryl Streep herself. MONET's PALATE, shot entirely in Paris, London and Giverny, includes exclusive footage of Monet's home in Normandy where he lived for over 40 years, including shots of the dining room where he entertained guests such as Marcel Proust and Paul Cezanne. The documentary also features Monet's paintings on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a select group of world famous chefs like Daniel Boulud, Alice Waters, Michel Richard and Roger Vergé prepare Monet's favorite meals.

Also see Monet's Palate (the general website) for all sorts of wonderful things about the movie, the meals, the creators of the film.

Did Alice really destroy all of Camille's letters? A 19th century soap opera!

A recent article in the Guardian has declared that Monet's second wife, Alice, destroyed all of the personal papers of Monet's first wife and muse, the lovely Camille, who died at the age of 32 from cancer. The whole situation of Monet's relationship with Alice Hoschede, his patron's wife, is shrouded in mystery to this day, I told the story as I believed it in CLAUDE & CAMILLE, and yet it was strange even to the Parisians of the day. When Alice's wealthy husband became bankrupt, Monet took Alice and her six children to live with him in his drafty house forty miles from Paris. Some people say he was already her lover, but it would be strange for Alice cared for the dying Camille, even arranging a Catholic wedding for Claude and Camille a few days before she died. Was this then the woman who supposed destroyed poor Camille's personal papers? If so she was a complicated woman indeed! She left diaries but they are unpublished. I would love to read them. Book clubs often ask me how much of the novel is true. How can you look into the complicated heart of anyone, and be clear about what they did in private more than 130 years ago? Or maybe when Alice and Claude moved in haste to Giverny, they left Camille's papers behind along with many unpaid bills...

The picture of Alice is by Carulus-Duran who also painted Claude Monet when they were both students; it was painted when Alice was still a wealthy woman in her chateau, never dreamingof falling in love with a painter who would remove her to the remote town of Giverny.

Happy 170th birthday, dearest Renoir!

Auguste Renoir would have been 170 years old this coming February 25th, having been born in 1841. His father was a tailor and as a boy he slept on the tailor's bench, sometimes being stuck by the odd dropped pin; at thirteen he went to work in a workshop, painting floral designs on plates. (Oh, in what dusty Paris antique shop can we find an unsigned plate from about 1854 painted by the hand of the young Renoir?)

I am struck always by his loving and sweet nature, much like his paintings. He said, “The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself and carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion. It is the current which he puts forth, which sweeps you along in his passion.”

He also said, "I need to feel the excitement of life stirring around me, and I will always need to feel that" and then, "Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world!"

Happy birthday to this tender, gifted impressionist! He is one of Claude Monet's best friends in my novel CLAUDE & CAMILLE and the hero of Susan Vreeland's LUNCHEON OF THE BOATING PARTY.

Berthe Morisot's teacher, "Papa" Corot

Corot taught the young Berthe Morisot and in the 1860s introduced her to plein air painting. I have always loved his work, and indeed he greatly influenced the young Berthe's style. He was by that time well into his sixties, a generous man with a mane of gray hair who willingly lent his pupils some of his paintings to take home and copy. Berthe's mother coaxed him into the social circle at her house; he was a shy bachelor and unwilling to come until Madame Morisot agreed to let him smoke his pipe during dessert. They called him "Papa" Corot.

Corot stood strongly behind the young Monet and Pissarro as well. The photograph of him shown was taken by Nadar, who lent his old photography studio at 35 boulevard des Capucines for the first Exhibition of Impressionism in 1874. Corot did not take part in the Exhibition though he had influenced and taught many of its painters.

Monet's Christmas lunch

Almost everyone who has journeyed to the master's house in Giverny comes away with a vision not only of the flower gardens but the glorious yellow dining room. We imagine ourselves invited to eat there with the master. Dinner was punctual; Monet would have been up tramping fields to paint since before dawn and was very hungry. He was also very particular. Asparagus was hardly cooked; he covered his salad and much else with almost spoonfuls of black pepper.

In Claire Joyes' fascinating book, Monet's Table, I found some enticing details about Christmas dinner at Giverny. It was served at midday and the dining room was bedecked with garlands of leaves and flowers while table bowls held clusters of Christmas roses and jasmine. Children would find little gray envelopes lined with rose madder at their places containing money from Monet and his wife. There were also mysterious little packets of sweets and small gifts such as pins, medallions and pocket watches. The large presents were waiting under the tree in the dining room.

The meal began with eggs scrambled with truffles or monkfish. Strasbourg truffled foie gras in pastry was served before the truffled, stuffed capon...etc. etc. Lastly there was a lit Christmas pudding and banana ice cream. And to think Monet lived on a sack of beans for a few months in his mid twenties while sharing a studio with Renoir. And they were not truffled beans, I am sure!

(I searched in vain for a Christmas post for this blog and found one two weeks late but here it is! Do get a copy of the book and cook some of the many recipes at the back of it!)

Van Gogh is a fascinating subject for novelists!

The Van Gogh novels I have read so far are:

LUST FOR LIFE by Irving Stone (1934) which portrays his whole artistic life until his death at 37;
SUNFLOWERS by Sheramy Bundrick (2009), the last few months of his life from the point of view of a prostitute who loved him
THE LAST VAN GOGH by Alison Richman, his doctor's daughter's love for him in the last months of his life;
JOANNA by Clare Cooperstein (1995), about his brother Theo's wife and how she saw the artist;
and LEAVING VAN GOGH by Carol Wallace (2011), his last months from the point of view of his holistic doctor Dr. Gachet

The man is endlessly fascinating! If there are other novels about him, please leave a comment.

where the rejected Parisian painters went in 1863

Oh the scandal! In 1863 Napoleon III instituted a Salon des Refusés where the painters who had been refused a place in the regular annual Salon could hang their work. Taking advantage of this was the young Edouard Manet with his now famous painting Le déjeuner sur l'herbe. The critic Théophile Burger wrote, "I fail to see what could have induced a distinguished and intelligent artist to adopt such an absurd composition."

At the date of this exhibition, Claude Monet was a handsome, dark-haired 23-year-old young recruit in the French army training grounds in Algiers...