Monet au Havre

Exhibition at the MuMa, Le Havre, 5 June – 27 September 2026

Claude Monet (1840–1926) took his first artistic steps in Le Havre. He filled his sketchbooks with drawings made from life, sketched the town’s dignitaries, learnt to paint landscapes alongside Eugène Boudin and later Johan Barthold Jongkind, absorbed the lessons of the masters and composed his first still lifes. In Le Havre, he also crossed paths with photographers, drawn by the picturesque subjects or the technical challenges offered by a seaport city undergoing rapid change. It was also in Le Havre that Monet, encouraged by his brother Léon, found patrons amongst local collectors.

This exhibition catalogue offers an in-depth exploration of Monet’s early years in Le Havre, from 1845 – when his family settled in the port city – to 1874, the year of the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris, which coincided with the creation of his final series of seascapes of Le Havre. From his earliest sketchbooks to his seascapes and harbour scenes, it reveals how these thirty decisive years, spent between Le Havre and Paris, shaped Monet’s vision and technique.