Norman Rockwell

popular name: Claude Monet

date_of_death: December 5, 1926

age: 86

cause_of_death: Lung cancer

claim_to_fame: Artists

best_know_for: Claude Monet was a French painter and a founder of the Impressionist movement, best known for his vibrant landscape paintings that capture the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere. Born on November 14, 1840, in Paris, Monet grew up in Le Havre, where he began his artistic journey by drawing caricatures. He later studied art in Paris and was deeply influenced by artists like Eugène Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind, who introduced him to painting outdoors, or en plein air. In the 1870s, Monet and other like-minded artists began exhibiting works that emphasized color, light, and movement over realistic detail, leading to the birth of Impressionism—a term derived from his painting Impression, Sunrise (1872). Despite early criticism, Monet persisted and eventually gained recognition. He spent the latter part of his life in Giverny, where he created his most famous series of water lilies, haystacks, and Rouen Cathedral paintings. Upon his death, he was laid to rest at Cimetiere de Giverny in France.

popular name: Winslow Homer

date_of_death: September 29, 1910

age: 74

cause_of_death: Heart failure

claim_to_fame: Artists

best_know_for: Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art. Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator. He subsequently took up oil painting and produced major studio works characterized by the weight and density he exploited from the medium. He also worked extensively in watercolor, creating a fluid and prolific oeuvre, primarily chronicling his working vacations. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates set what was then an American art record when he bought Winslow Homer's "Lost on the Grand Banks" for $36 million in 1998.

popular name: George Inness

date_of_death: August 3, 1894

age: 69

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Artists

best_know_for: Often called "the father of American landscape painting", George Inness was a prominent American landscape painter during the late 1800s. Although Inness's style evolved through distinct stages over a prolific career that spanned more than forty years and 1,000 paintings, his works consistently earned acclaim for their powerful, coordinated efforts to elicit depth of mood, atmosphere, and emotion. Neither pure realist nor impressionist, Inness was a transitional figure who intended for his works to combine both the earthly and the ethereal in order to capture the complete essence of a locale. A master of light, color, and shadow, he became noted for creating highly ordered and complex scenes that often juxtaposed hazy or blurred elements with sharp and refined details to evoke an interweaving of both the physical and the spiritual nature of experience.