Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro
Self-portrait, 1873
Birth name	Jacob-Abraham-Camille Pissarro
Born	10 July 1830(1830-07-10) Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands (St. Thomas)
Died	13 November 1903(1903-11-13) (aged 73) Paris, France
Nationality	French
Field	Painting
Movement	Impressionism, Post-Impressionism

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.

Contents 1 Early life and work 1.1 The London years 2 Art and legacy 2.1 Descendants and family 3 Gallery 4 See also 5 Resources 5.1 Notes 5.2 Primary sources 5.3 Further reading 5.4 Critical Catalogue of Paintings 6 External links

Early life and work

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 London years

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.

Art and legacy

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]

Descendants and family

Camille's granddaughter (Lucien Pissarro's daughter) Orovida Pissarro became a painter. 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).

Gallery

Two Women Chatting By The Sea, St. Thomas, 1856. National Gallery of Art Washington, DC.	Le chemin, c. 1864	Jallais Hill, Pontoise 1867, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Old Chelsea Bridge, London 1871, Smith College Museum of Arts	The garden of Pontoise, 1875	The Côte des Bœufs at L’Hermitage, 1877
Washerwoman, Study, 1880	Conversation, c. 1881	The Harvest, 1882, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo
Children on a Farm, 1887	Haying at Eragny, 1889	The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning, 1897, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Boulevard Montmartre au printemps, 1897	Boulevard Montmartre, 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, 1898	Hay Harvest at Éragny, 1901, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario	Self-portrait, 1903, Tate Gallery, London

See also

Works

• Hay Harvest at Éragny - National Gallery of Canada
• Pont Boieldieu in Rouen, Rainy Weather - Art Gallery of Ontario
• The Côte des Bœufs at L’Hermitage - National Gallery, London

Resources

Notes

Primary sources

• Rewald, John, ed., with the assistance of Lucien Pissarro: Camille Pissarro, Lettres à son fils Lucien, Editions Albin Michel, Paris 1950; previously published, translated to English: Camille Pissarro, Letters to his son Lucien, New York 1943 & London 1944; 3rd revised edition, Paul P Appel Publishers, 1972 ISBN 0-911858-22-9
• Bailly-Herzberg, Janine, ed.: Correspondance de Camille Pissarro, 5 volumes, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1980 & Editions du Valhermeil, Paris, 1986–1991 ISBN 2-13-036694-5 - ISBN 2-905684-05-4 - ISBN 2-905684-09-7 - ISBN 2-905684-17-8 - ISBN 2-905684-35-6
• Thorold, Anne, ed.: The letters of Lucien to Camille Pissarro 1883–1903, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York & Oakleigh, 1993 ISBN 0-521-39034-6

Further reading

• 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
• Eitner, Lorenz, An Outline of 19th Century European Painting: From David through Cézanne (1992), HarperCollins Publishers, ISBN 0-06-430223-7
• Nochlin, Linda, The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society (1991) Westview Press, ISBN 0-06-430187-7
• Rewald, John, The History of Impressionism (1961), Museum of Modern Art, ISBN 0-8109-6035-4
• Stone, Irving, Depths of Glory (1987), Signet, ISBN 0-451-14602-6

Critical Catalogue of Paintings

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 88-7624-525-1

External links

• www.camille-pissarro.org 1097 works by Camille Pissarro and more
• Profiles of Outstanding Virgin Islanders: Camille Pissarro (includes link to photograph of Pissarro)
• Photograph of Pissarro's Mausoleum at Cimitiere Pere Lachaise, Paris (JPG)
• Pissarro paintings, media & interactive timeline
• Union List of Artist Names, Getty Vocabularies. ULAN Full Record Display for Camille Pissarro. Getty Vocabulary Program, Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California.

Impressionism Originators 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 Patrons Gustave Caillebotte · Henry O. Havemeyer · Ernest Hoschedé Dealers Paul Durand-Ruel · Georges Petit · Ambroise Vollard Artists in USA William Merritt Chase · Frederick Carl Frieseke · Childe Hassam · Willard Metcalf · Lilla Cabot Perry · Theodore Robinson · John Henry Twachtman · J. Alden Weir Other artists Lovis Corinth · Max Liebermann · Max Slevogt · Konstantin Korovin · Valentin Serov · Francisco Oller · Laura Muntz Lyall · Władysław Podkowiński · Nazmi Ziya Güran · Chafik Charobim Other media Music · Literature · French Impressionist Cinema See also Decorative Impressionism · Post-Impressionism

Persondata
Name	Pissarro, Camille
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	10 July 1830
Place of birth
Date of death	13 November 1903
Place of death	Paris, France