Claude Monet
What failed
The Salon jury turned him down in 1867, 1869 and 1870. In June 1868 he was thrown out of the inn where he was living with Camille and their baby son, in his own words naked as a worm. That autumn his paintings were seized by his creditors. When the Salon refused The Magpie he wrote that the rejection had taken the bread from his mouth. The first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, the one the movement is named after, ended so badly that the society behind it was wound up owing more than three and a half thousand francs. Camille died in 1879, aged thirty-two, at the lowest point of his finances.
What happened next
The turn came in his late forties. A joint exhibition with Rodin in 1889 was a success with critics and public, he bought the house at Giverny outright in 1890, and in May 1891 fifteen paintings of haystacks hung together at Durand-Ruel's gallery were a critical and financial success that changed his career.
The point
In May 2019 one of his haystack paintings sold for $110.7 million, and for roughly twenty-five years he could not reliably pay rent. The paintings did not get better in 1891. The audience arrived.
The sequence
7 documented failures, shown with the successes in between. Every entry carries its own source — the wins are part of the record, and leaving them out is how these stories get distorted.
- 1867
The Salon jury rejects him. His first son is born into a household with no money.
- 1868
The Salon accepts one of his two Le Havre canvases, and in October he wins a silver medal at the city's maritime exhibition.
- 1868
He is thrown out of the inn where the family is living, for not paying.
- 1868
His paintings are seized by his creditors.
- 1869
The Salon refuses The Magpie. He says the rejection has taken the bread from his mouth.
- 1870
The Salon rejects him again, his third refusal in four years.
- 1874
The first Impressionist exhibition ends insolvent and the society behind it is wound up.
- 1879
Camille dies at thirty-two, at the low point of his finances.
- 1889
A joint exhibition with Rodin wins over both the critics and the public.
- 1891
Fifteen haystack paintings hung together at Durand-Ruel's gallery are a critical and financial success, and the career turns.
Sources
- Timeline (Fondation Claude Monet, Giverny)
1867 Lives with Bazille at 20 rue Visconti; rejected by the Salon; stays in Sainte-Adresse; his companion and future wife Camille Doncieux gives birth to their first child, Jean.
- Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer) (Art Institute of Chicago)
In May 1891, Monet hung fifteen of these canvases next to each other in one small room in the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris. An unprecedented critical and financial success, the exhibition marked a breakthrough in Monet’s career, as well as in the history of French art.
- Haystacks (Wikipedia)
On May 14, 2019, a privately held work from this series (Grainstacks, 1890) exchanged hands at $110.7 million, setting a record for a Monet work and becoming the first impressionist work to surpass $100 million.
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Related failures
Others in visual art, and nearby.
Yayoi Kusama
Artist
Turned up uninvited at the Venice Biennale in 1966 and had her sale stopped by the organisers. Represented Japan there twenty-seven years later.
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Grandma Moses
Painter
Her paintings sat unsold in a chemist's window for years. She was seventy-eight.
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Charles M. Schulz
Cartooning
His own school yearbook would not print his drawings. He called it his first major rejection.
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Auguste Rodin
Sculptor
The Beaux-Arts refused him three times, the Salon rejected the first sculpture he offered twice, and he spent most of two decades cutting architectural ornament he did not sign.
7 documented failures