Exhibit: ‘Invisible’ Monet, Leon, was key to impressionism

By THOMAS ADAMSON
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — Claude Monet’s older sibling is the focus of a landmark Paris exhibit illuminating the hitherto unknown role Leon Monet played in the French impressionist painter’s life and art. Leon was a color chemist and is now understood to have been critical in the emergence of Claude’s commercial success and the famed color palette that created masterpieces like the Water Lilies series. The exhibit curator says “it’s never been known before but without Leon there would not have really been a Monet the artist the world knows today.” Leon financed Claude and also employed him as a color assistant. That was a pivotal moment for the painter but also possibly for the emergence of impressionism.