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| 1852c Camille Pissarro in Caracas |
Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) was born on the island of St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies. His father was of Portuguese Jewish descent and held French Nationality. At the age of 12, Pissarro was sent to a boarding school in France, where he developed an early appreciation of the French masters. After completing his education Pissarro returned to St. Thomas where he was initially involved on the family mercantile business.
In 1849 Pissarro made the acquaintance of
Danish artist Fritz Melbye, who encouraged him in his artistic endeavors. In
1852 Pissarro and Melbye left St. Thomas for Venezuela, where they lived and
worked for the next few years.
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| 1852-54 Market Scene on the Plaza Mayor, Caracas Presidential Residence, La Casona, Caracas |
In 1855 Pissarro returned to Paris,
studying at the École des Beaux-Arts and Académie Suisse and working closely
with painters Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet, honing his skills and
experimenting with new approaches to art. Pissarro eventually fell in with a
group of young artists, including Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne, who shared his
interests and questions. The work of these artists was not accepted by the
French artistic establishment, which excluded non-traditional painting from the
official Salon exhibitions.
Though Pissarro kept a studio in Paris, he
spent much of his time in the outskirts. He preferred to work in the open air
rather than the studio, painting scenes of village life and the natural world.
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| 1860-67 Route de Port-Marly oil on panel 22.9 x 33.7 cm The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK |
During this period he became involved with
his mother’s maid, Julie Vellay, with whom he would have eight children and
eventually marry in 1871. Their family life was interrupted by the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, which forced them to flee to London.
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| 1870-71 No.77a Westow Hill, Crystal Palace |
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| 1871 The Avenue, Sydenham oil on canvas 48 x 73 cm The National Gallery, London |
Returning to his home in France at the end
of the conflict, Pissarro discovered that the majority of his existing body of
work had been destroyed. He quickly rebounded from this setback and reconnected
with his artists friends, including Cézanne,
Renoir and Degas.
In 1873 Pissarro established a collective
of 15 artists with the goal of offering an alternative to the Salon. The
following year, the group held their first exhibition. The unconventional
content and style shocked critics and helped to define Impressionism as an
artistic movement. For his part, Pissarro exhibited five paintings, including
“Hoar Frost.” They would hold several more exhibitions over the coming years,
though the group slowly began to drift apart.
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| 1873 Hoarfrost oil on canvas 65 x 93 cm Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
By the 1880s Pissarro had moved into the
Post-Impressionist period, returning to some of his earlier themes and
exploring new techniques such as Pointillism.
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| 1886 Railway to Dieppe oil on canvas Private Collection |
He also forged new friendships with artists
including Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, and was an early admirer of Vincent
Van Gogh. While in keeping with his life-long interest in innovation,
Pissarro’s turning away from Impressionism contributed to the general decline
of the movement, which he had influenced greatly.
In his later years, Pissarro suffered from
a recurring eye infection that prevented him from working outdoors for much of
the year. As a result of this disability, he often painted while looking out of
the window of a hotel room. He painting many series of views of Paris by this
method.
Pissarro died in Paris in November 1903,
and is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
I hope the story of Pissarro’s life and
work will be of interest because it will be a major series running over the
next few weeks. Though I haven’t included absolutely every piece of Pissarro’s
work, I will however be featuring well over a thousand examples, the better to
understand his legacy.
This is part 1 of a 21-part series on the
works of Camille Pissarro:
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| 1850-59 Laundress on the Banks of the River oil on paper mounted on panel 23.5 x 16 cm Private Collection |
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| 1853-54c Landscape with Figures by a River watercolour over graphite 37.1 x 54.1 cm Landscape with Figures by a River |
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| 1854 Bridge at Caracas watercolour over graphite 24 x 30.5 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. |
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| 1854-55 Landscape with House in the Woods in Saint Thomas, Antilles oil on canvas 24.2 x 31.5 cm Private Collection |
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| 1854-55 Mountain Landscape at Saint Thomas, Antilles (unfinished) oil on canvas 27.2 x 34.9 cm Private Collection |
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| 1854-55c Village at the Foot of a Hill in Saint Thomas, Antilles oil on canvas 24 x 30.7 cm Private Collection |
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| 1854-55c Woman Carrying a Pitcher on Her Head oil on canvas E. G. Bührle Collection, Zurich, Switzerland |
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| 1855-57 Young Black Woman Sitting charcoal and white chalk on beige-blue paper 30.2 x 43.2 cm Private Collection |
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| 1856 A Creek in St. Thomas oil on academy board 24.5 x 32.2 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. |
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| 1856 Antilian Landscape, St. Thomas oil on canvas 32.7 x 45.7 Private Collection |
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| 1856 House by a Country Road with Figures oil on canvas 32.7 x 40.7 cm Private Collection |
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| 1856 Landscape with Farmhouse and Palm Trees oil on cardboard 24.8 x 32.7 cm National Gallery of Art, Caracas, Venezuela |
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| 1856 Two Women Chatting by the Sea oil on canvas 41 x 27.7 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. |
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| 1856c Antilles Landscape, Donkey and Rider on a Path oil on board 21.8 x 16 cm Private Collection |
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| 1857-58c Three Riders and Horses Galloping on a Plain oil on canvas 30.3 x 59.1 cm Private Collection |
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| 1857c The Harvest oil on panel Private Collection |
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| 1858 Picnic at Montmorency oil on canvas 37 x 47 cm Private Collection |
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| 1859 Grove of Trees pen with brown and black ink, grey wash and graphite on grey paper 24 x 31.3 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. |
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| 1859 Houses by a Road pen and brown ink with graphite on grey laid paper 24 x 31.5 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. |
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| 1859c A Lane in the Woods oil on canvas 41 x 33 cm Private Collection |
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| 1859c Horseman in the Forest oil on canvas 39.5 x 32 cm Private Collection |
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| 1861 La Butte, Montmartre oil on canvas 27.5 x 22.2 cm Private Collection |
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| 1862 A Rose Garden oil on canvas 34.9 x 27.9 cm Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT |
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| 1862 Donkeys in Pasture oil on canvas mounted on board 37.1 x 75.8 cm Private Collection |
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| 1862 La roulette des Bohemiens oil on canvas Private Collection |
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| 1862 White Horse and Hauler oil on panel 24.3 x 33 cm Private Collection |
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| 1863 By the Waterside etching 28.2 x 21.4 cm Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA |
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| 1863 Farmyard oil on canvas 38.1 x 47 cm Private Collection |
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| 1863 The Telegraph Tower at Montmartre oil on canvas 40.3 x 32.4 cm Private Collection |
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| 1863 The Wood Cart oil on canvas Private Collection |
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| 1863 Village Corner oil on panel 16 x 29.5 cm Private Collection |
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| 1863-64c Figures at the Banks of the Marne, near Chennevières charcoal heightened with white chalk 31 x 49 cm National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh |
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| 1863-65 The Marne River at Varenne-Saint-Hilaire charcoal on wove paper 50.8 x 69.8 cm Dallas Museum of Art, Texas |
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| 1863c Entering a Village oil on canvas 33 x 41 cm Private Collection |
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| 1863c La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire, View from Champigny oil on canvas 49.6 x 74 cm Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest, Hungary |
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| 1863c Landscape with Flock of Sheep and Haystacks oil on panel 9.9. x 18.5 cm Private Collection |
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| 1864 Landscape in Montfoucault graphite on paper 31.1 x 46.2 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| 1864 Les bords de la Seine à Bougival oil on canvas 24.4 x 32.4 cm The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University, UK |
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| 1864 The Banks of the Marne oil on canvas 82 x 108 cm Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, UK |
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| 1864-65 The Donkey Ride at Le Roche Guyon oil on canvas 37 x 53 cm Private Collection |
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| 1864-65c Landscape, Varenne-Saint-Hilaire oil on canvas Private Collection |
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| 1864-65c The Banks of the Marne at Cennevieres watercolour, graphite and pen and brown ink on paper Private Collection |
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| 1864-65c The Marne at Chennevières oil on canvas 91.5 x 145.5 cm National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh |
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| 1864c Banks of a River with Barge oil on canvas 10.2 x 18.7 cm Private Collection |
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| 1864c The Road oil on canvas 35.5 x 27 cm Private Collection |
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| 1865 Barges at la Roche Guyon oil on canvas Musée Camille Pissarro, Pontoise, France |
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| 1865c Landscape at La Varenne-Saint-Hilaire oil on canvas Private Collection |
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| 1864 In the Woods oil on canvas Private Collection |