Claude Monet died of lung cancer at his home in Giverny, northwest of Paris, on December 5, 1926. He was 86.
An X-ray had found the tumor that September, after a spring of coughing and lost strength. His family and friends kept the diagnosis from him. He spent his last months as he had spent the previous twelve years, on the giant Water Lilies he had promised to France.
Cool Stories About Art is a newsletter to learn art the fun way.
Join 200,000+ readers and get:
10 new art stories / month
The entire archive of content (1,000+ articles)
Comment, ask questions, and chat with other readers
What killed Claude Monet?
The trouble began with a cough. In the spring of 1926 Monet grew weak, and the energy that had carried him through decades of painting outdoors drained away. That September an X-ray showed a tumor in his lung, according to an account of his medical history in Hektoen International, a journal of medical humanities.
The National Gallery of Victoria, in its chronology of his life, words the cause more carefully: probably a lung tumor and pulmonary sclerosis, a scarring of the lung tissue. Hektoen International adds that the people closest to him chose not to tell him what the X-ray had shown.
He went on as if he had a future. In his last weeks he ordered Japanese lily bulbs for the garden, and he told his friend Georges Clemenceau, the former prime minister of France: "You will see all of this in the spring. I will no longer be here." The National Gallery of Victoria, which records the remark, does not say what prompted it.
I do not believe the silence fooled him. A man who is told nothing does not order bulbs for a season he expects to miss. He ordered them for the garden all the same, and he spoke like someone who knew he would not see them flower.
What You'll Discover
The eyes that failed him first.
The paintings he would not let go.
The day he died, and the simple burial.
What became of the Water Lilies.