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Camille Pissarro (July 10, 1830 – November 13, 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.

Contents 1 Early life and work 1.1 The London years 2 Art and legacy 2.1 Descendants and Family 3 Notes 4 Further reading 5 See also 6 External links

Jacob-Abraham-Camille Pissarro^[1] was born in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, to Abraham Gabriel Pissarro, a Portuguese Sephardic Jew, and Rachel Manzana-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 political anarchy, an attraction that may have originated during his years in St. Thomas. In 1852, he travelled 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.^[2]

His finest early works (See Jalais Hill, Pontoise, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) 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. Camille Pissarro: Lettres à son fils Lucien, 1943 edited by Art historian John Rewald reveals insights into the life of an artist, for both father and son.

It was during the Franco Prussian war of 1870-71 that Pissarro took refuge in London and settled at Westow Hill in Upper Norwood (today better known as Crystal Palace, near Sydenham). A Blue Plaque currently marks the site of the house on the building at 77a Westow Hill.

Through the paintings Pissarro completed at this time, we can glimpse back to the days when Sydenham was a small satellite town recently connected to the capital by the arrival of the railway. One of the most appreciated of these paintings is a view of St Bartholomew’s Church at the end of Lawrie Park Avenue. It now belongs to the London National Gallery. Other paintings of the area include Norwood Under the Snow, Lordship Lane Train Station, 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 Norwood Pissarro was introduced to the art agent Durand-Ruel, who bought two of his ‘London’ paintings. Ruel then went on to become the agent-in-chief of the new school of French impressionist painters.

In 1890 Pissarro returned to 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.

Known as the "Father of Impressionism",^[3] 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, 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 Éragny-sur-Epte on either November 12 or November 13, 1903 and was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. On his tomb it reads 12 November 1903.

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. ^[4]

Camille's great-grandson, Joachim Pissarro, is currently the Head Curator of Drawing and Painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His great-granddaughter, Lélia, is a successful painter and resides in London.^[5] From the only daughter of Camille, Jeanne Pissarro, others painters include Henri Bonin-Pissarro also knowns as BOPI (1918-2003) and Claude Bonin-Pissarro (born 1921), father of Frédéric Bonin-Pissarro (born 1964).

• Clement, Russell T. and Houze, Annick, Neo-Impressionist Painters: A Sourcebook on Georges Seurat, Camille Pissarro, Paul Signac, Theo Van Rysselberghe, Henri Edmond Cross, Charles Angrand, Maximilien Luce, and Albert Dubois-Pillet (1999), Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-30382-7
• Rewasl, John, The History of Impressionism(1961) , Museum of Modern Art, ISBN 0-810-96035-4
• Nochlin, Linda, The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society (1991) Westview Press, ISBN 0-064-30187-7
• Eitner, Lorenz, An Outline of 19th Century European Painting: From David through Cezanne (1992), HarperCollins Publishers, ISBN 0-064-30223-7
• Stone, Irving, Depths of Glory (1987), Signet, ISBN 0-451-14602-6

• Hay Harvest at Éragny
• Western painting
• History of painting

• Profiles of Outstanding Virgin Islanders: Camille Pissarro (includes link to photograph of Pissarro)
• Photograph of Pissarro's Mausoleum at Cimitiere Pere Lachaise, Paris (JPG)
• Camille Pissarro: Impressions of City and Country at The Jewish Museum, Sep. 2007 - Feb 2008

v • d • e Impressionism
Original Impressionists	Frédéric Bazille · Eugène Boudin · Gustave Caillebotte · Mary Cassatt · Paul Cézanne · Edgar Degas · Armand Guillaumin · Édouard Manet · Claude Monet · Berthe Morisot · Camille Pissarro · Pierre-Auguste Renoir · Alfred Sisley
The American Impressionists	Frederick Carl Frieseke · Childe Hassam · Willard Metcalf · Lilla Cabot Perry · Theodore Robinson · John Henry Twachtman · J. Alden Weir
Other impressionists	Lovis Corinth · Max Liebermann · Max Slevogt · Konstantin Korovin · Valentin Serov · Francisco Oller y Cestero · Laura Muntz Lyall · Władysław Podkowiński · Nazmi Ziya Güran · Chafik Charobim
Impressionism in other art forms	Impressionist music · Impressionism (literature) · French Impressionist Cinema