Monet Birthday Bash at Houston Happy Hour

Impressionist maestro Claude Monet would have been 174 years old today, and even though he was not around to participate, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, honored him with a birthday bash last night. The museum’s Happy Hour Thursday, featuring free admission and extended hours (until 8PM), was dedicated to the French painter, whose light-drenched paintings are the focus of the museum’s current blockbuster exhibition, “Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River,” on view through February 1, 2015.

The exhibition contains more than 50 major paintings on loan from international collections, all centered on Monet’s inimitable relationship with water. Renowned for his exalted images of his beloved waterlily pond, the Thames and other storied bodies of water, Monet pays homage in this show the river closest to his heart and home, the Seine. This season, Monet was, as usual, a perennial star at  New York’s big blue-chip fall auctions of Impressionist and modern art.