Camille Pissarro (10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a French Impressionist painter. His importance resides not only in his visual contributions to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, but also in his patriarchal standing among his colleagues, particularly Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin.
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Jacob-Abraham-Camille Pissarro[1] was born at Charlotte Amalie (St. Thomas), Virgin Islands,[2] to Abraham Gabriel Pissarro, a Portuguese Sephardic Jew, and Rachel Manzano-Pomié, from the Dominican Republic. Pissarro lived in St. Thomas until age 12, when he went to a boarding school in Paris. He returned to St. Thomas where he drew in his free time. Pissarro was attracted to anarchism, an attraction that may have originated during his years in St. Thomas. In 1852, he traveled to Venezuela with the Danish artist Fritz Melbye. In 1855, Pissarro left for Paris, where he studied at various academic institutions (including the École des Beaux-Arts and Académie Suisse) and under a succession of masters such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, and Charles-François Daubigny. Corot is sometimes considered Pissarro's most important early influence; Pissarro listed himself as Corot’s pupil in the catalogues to the 1864 and 1865 Paris Salons.[3]
His finest early works (See Jalais Hill, Pontoise, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)[4] are characterized by a broadly painted (sometimes with palette knife) naturalism derived from Courbet, but with an incipient Impressionist palette.
Pissarro married Julie Vellay, a maid in his mother's household. Of their eight children, one died at birth and one daughter died aged nine. The surviving children all painted, and Lucien, the oldest son, became a follower of William Morris.
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 compelled Pissarro to flee his home in Louveciennes in September 1870; he returned in June 1871 to find that the house, and along with it many of his early paintings, had been destroyed by Prussian soldiers.[5] Initially his family was taken in by a fellow artist in Montfoucault, but by December 1870 they had taken refuge in London and settled at Westow Hill in Upper Norwood (today better known as Crystal Palace). A Blue Plaque now marks the site of the house on the building at 77a Westow Hill.
Through the paintings Pissarro completed at this time, he records Sydenham and the Norwoods at a time when they were just recently connected by railways, but prior to the expansion of suburbia. One of the largest of these paintings is a view of St. Bartholomew's Church at Lawrie Park Avenue, commonly known as The Avenue, Sydenham, in the collection of the London National Gallery. Twelve oil paintings date from his stay in Upper Norwood and are listed and illustrated in the catalogue raisonné prepared jointly by his fifth child Ludovic-Rodolphe Pissarro and Lionello Venturi and published in 1939. These paintings include Norwood Under the Snow, and Lordship Lane Station,[6] views of The Crystal Palace relocated from Hyde Park, Dulwich College, Sydenham Hill, All Saints Church, and a lost painting of St. Stephen's Church.
Whilst in Upper Norwood Pissarro was introduced to the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who bought two of his 'London' paintings. Durand-Ruel subsequently became the most important art dealer of the new school of French Impressionism.
Returning to France, in 1890 Pissarro again visited England and painted some ten scenes of central London. He came back again in 1892, painting in Kew Gardens and Kew Green, and also in 1897, when he produced several oils of Bedford Park, Chiswick. For more details of his British visits, see Nicholas Reed, "Camille Pissarro at Crystal Palace" and "Pissarro in West London", published by Lilburne Press.
Pissarro painted rural and urban French life, particularly landscapes in and around Pontoise, as well as scenes from Montmartre. His mature work displays an empathy for peasants and laborers, and sometimes evidences his radical political leanings. He was a mentor to Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin and his example inspired many younger artists, including Californian Impressionist Lucy Bacon.
Pissarro's influence on his fellow Impressionists is probably still underestimated; not only did he offer substantial contributions to Impressionist theory, but he also managed to remain on friendly, mutually respectful terms with such difficult personalities as Edgar Degas, Cézanne and Gauguin. Pissarro exhibited at all eight of the Impressionist exhibitions. Moreover, whereas Monet was the most prolific and emblematic practitioner of the Impressionist style, Pissarro was nonetheless a primary developer of Impressionist technique.
Pissarro experimented with Neo-Impressionist ideas between 1885 and 1890. Discontented with what he referred to as "romantic Impressionism," he investigated Pointillism which he called "scientific Impressionism" before returning to a purer Impressionism in the last decade of his life.
In March 1893, in Paris, Gallery Durand-Ruel organized a major exhibition of 46 of Pissarro's works along with 55 others by Antonio de La Gandara. But while the critics acclaimed Gandara, their appraisal of Pissarro's art was less enthusiastic.
Pissarro died in Paris on 13 November 1903 and was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery.[2]
During his lifetime, Camille Pissarro sold few of his paintings. By 2005, however, some of his works were selling in the range of U.S. $2 to 4 million.[7]
Camille's great-grandson, Joachim Pissarro, is former Head Curator of Drawing and Painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and is now a professor in Hunter College's Art Department.[8] His great-granddaughter, Lélia, is a painter and resides in London. From the only daughter of Camille, - Jeanne Pissarro, other painters include Henri Bonin-Pissarro also known as BOPI (1918–2003) and Claude Bonin-Pissarro (born 1921), who is the father of Abstract artist Frédéric Bonin-Pissarro (born 1964). For all these descendants and relationships, see www.pissarro.net
 Two Women Chatting By The Sea, St. Thomas, 1856. National Gallery of Art Washington, DC. |
 Le chemin, c. 1864 |
 The garden of Pontoise, painted 1875 |
 Conversation, c. 1881 |
 The Harvest, 1882, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo |
 Haying at Eragny, 1889 |
 Boulevard Montmartre au printemps, 1897 |
 Boulevard Montmartre la nuit, 1898 |
 Avenue de l'Opera, Paris, 1898 |
 View of Rouen, 1898, Honolulu Academy of Arts |
 Morning, Winter Sunshine, Frost, the Pont-Neuf, the Seine, the Louvre, Soleil D'hiver Gella Blanc, c. 1901, Honolulu Academy of Arts |
 Self-portrait, 1903, Tate Gallery, London |
In June 2006 publishers Skira/Wildenstein released Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of Paintings, compiled by Joachim Pissarro (descendant of the painter) and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts (descendant of the French art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel). The 1,500-page, three-volume work is the most comprehensive collection of Pissarro paintings to date, and contains accompanying images of drawings and studies, as well as photographs of Pissarro and his family that have not previously been published. ISBN 8-876-24525-1
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CAMILLE PISSARRO (1831-1903), French painter, was born at St Thomas in the Danish Antilles, of Jewish parents of Spanish extraction. He went to Paris at the age of twenty, and, as a pupil of Corot, came into close touch with the Barbizon masters. Though at first he devoted himself to subjects of the kind which will ever be associated with the name of Millet, his interest was entirely absorbed by the landscape, and not by the figures. He subsequently fell under the spell of the rising impressionist movement and threw in his lot with Monet and his friends, who were at that time the butt of public ridicule. Like Monet, he made sunlight, and the effect of sunlight on the objects of nature, the chief subjects of his paintings, whether in the country or on the Paris boulevards. About 1885 he took up the laboriously scientific method of the pointillists, but after a few years of these experiments he returned to a broader and more attractive manner. Indeed, in the closing years of his life he produced some of his finest paintings, in which he set down with admirable truth the peculiar atmosphere and colour and teeming life of the boulevards, streets and bridges of Paris and Rouen. He died in Paris in 1903.
Pissarro is represented in the Caillebotte room at the Luxembourg, and in almost every collection of impressionist paintings. A number of his finest works are in the collection of M. DurandRuel in Paris.
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Categories: PIO-PLA | French painters | History of Poland and Lithuania
Camille Pissarro (10 July 1830 – 12 November 1903) was a painter. He was among the most well-known and prolific painters of Impressionism. He was born on Saint Tomas in the Virgin Islands. At the time, these islands belonged to Denmark, today, they belong to the United States. Pissarro died in Paris.
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 compelled Pissarro to flee his home in September 1870; he returned in June 1871 to find that the house, and along with it many of his early paintings, had been destroyed by Prussian soldiers.[1] By December 1870 he and his family had taken refuge in London and settled in Crystal Palace, southwest London.
Through the paintings Pissarro completed at this time, he records Sydenham and Norwood at a time when they were just recently connected by railways. One of the largest of these paintings is a view of St. Bartholomew's Church at Lawrie Park Avenue, commonly known as The Avenue, Sydenham, in the collection of the National Gallery, London.[2]
Whilst in Upper Norwood Pissarro was introduced to the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who bought two of his 'London' paintings. Durand-Ruel subsequently became the most important art dealer of the new school of French Impressionism.
Returning to France, in 1890 Pissarro again visited England and painted some ten scenes of central London. He came back again in 1892, painting in Kew Gardens and Kew Green, and also in 1897, when he produced several oils of Bedford Park, Chiswick.
   | Pissarro Exhibition PowerPoint with sound - Pissarro Exhibition pps / with sound | Art Knowledge News |
| | Pissarro: Impressions of City and Country'' at The Jewish Museum, Sep. 2007 - Feb 2008 - The Jewish Museum - Special Exhibition - Camille Pissarro: Impressions of City and Country |
| | MOMA names two curators - Artworld - Ann Temkin and Joachim Pissarro - Brief Article - MOMA names two curators - Artworld - Ann Temkin and Joachim Pissarro - Brief Article | Art in America | Find Articles at BNET |
| | Artnet Auction Report - artnet.com Magazine News - Artnet Auction Report |
| | ''The Radical Eye of Impressionism's Patriarch'', New York Times. - The New York Times > Log In |
| | Camille Pissarro at Olga's Gallery - Camille Pissarro - Olga's Gallery |
| | ''The Avenue, Sydenham,'' - Camille Pissarro | The Avenue, Sydenham | NG6493 | The National Gallery, London |
| | artchive.com - Pissarro: Lordship Lane Station |
| | Libcom.org/history: Camille Pissarro political biography - History | libcom.org |
| | Christian Science Monitor: US lawsuits pursue lost art - US lawsuits pursue lost art | csmonitor.com |
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