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`Monet is easy to understand, his name is easy to pronounce, he was very prolific.' - Edgar Munhall, curator of the Frick Museum
CLAUDE MONET was depressed and full of doubt when he began painting a series of landscapes of the town, named Vetheuil, where he was stuck for three years. Not yet 40, he was impoverished, his new work had disappointed the once-adoring critics, and his family life was a tragedy and a mess: He was having an affair while his wife, age 34, lay dying.
There is much irony in Monet's fears that his career was over. He would live another half century, until 1926, the wealthiest and most famous painter in France - and now the most popular painter in America.
"The Monet season is open," says Frick Museum curator Edgar Munhall, gentle sarcasm showing through his courtly manner. For if Monet has been a favorite since the years after World War II, the past four or five years have shown nothing less than Monet mania. A big Monet show at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., ends this weekend, the same time that a big Monet show at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston begins. Friday, another big...