The Camille Pissarro Home Page
created by Allison MacDuffee, University of Toronto / York University
Last updated: December 1, 2007
Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) was a key member of the French Impressionist group of painters. He was born in St. Thomas in the West Indies, where his father was a prosperous merchant. The Pissarro family, French and Jewish in origin, had settled in the Danish colony of St. Thomas a few years earlier. Pissarro received his early education at a boarding school near Paris. Returning to St. Thomas, the young man had little interest in the family business, and spent his time sketching the picturesque port. In 1852, he left for Venezuela in the company of the Danish painter Fritz Melbye, and worked as an artist there for two years.
Pissarro settled in France 1855. He arrived in time to see the great Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) which included a large art section. Following the advice of Corot, whose landscapes he had admired at the fair, Pissarro was soon painting and sketching in small towns and villages near Paris, along the Seine, Oise and Marne rivers. He formed friendships with Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, and other future members of the Impressionist group. By the late 1860s, his powerful realist landscapes were praised by the prominent critic Emile Zola.
Pissarro's period of residence in England during the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune (1870-71) was a fruitful one for him. After his return to France, he was a key instigator of the first Impressionist Exhibition in 1874, and was the only member of the group to exhibit in all eight Impressionist Exhibitions.
Always searching for new means of expression, Pissarro was one of the most innovative of the Impressionists. He was among the first to divide colors, as in his painting The Garden of Les Mathurins at Pontoise, 1876 (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City), where the sunlit path is made up of brushstrokes of pink, blue, white and yellow ochre. Pissarro also excelled at drawing; the largest collection of his drawings is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
In the 1880s, Pissarro joined a younger generation of artists, including Georges Seurat , Paul Signac, and his own son Lucien, in adopting the Neo-Impressionist technique, which used the claims of science to support a new style of painting. In common with many artists and writers of his day, he became a fervent anarchist . He produced a powerful attack on French bourgeois society in his album of anarchist drawings, Turpitudes Sociales, 1889.
Pissarro gradually abandoned Neo-Impressionism in the 1890s, preferring a more supple style that better enabled him to capture his sensations of nature. While continuing to depict the landscape and peasants at his rural home in Eragny, he also embarked on a new adventure: cityscape painting. In his portrayals of Paris , Rouen, Le Havre and Dieppe, he explored changing effects of light and weather, while expressing the dynamism of the modern city.
Camille Pissarro was actively painting up until the end of his life. He died in Paris in 1903, age 73.
Biography © Allison MacDuffee, 1998. If you wish to include this biography in your web site, please include this credit, and a link to this site
Pissarro News
There are two exciting Pissarro exhibitions in North America this fall.
| Pissarro: Creating the Impressionist Landscape | Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A. | October 7, 2007 to January 6, 2008. | This exhibition of approximately 50 paintings, previously seen in Baltimore and Milwaukee, explores "the remarkable transformation of Camille Pissarro's landscape paintings over the course of an important decade in his career, from 1864 to 1874." Having seen the Milwaukee presentation, I can vouch with enthusiasm that this is a stunning show, and well worth the trip. |
| Camille Pissarro: Impressions of City and Country | Jewish Museum, New York City | September 15, 2007 to February 03, 2008 | This exhibition, comprising over 50 paintings and works on paper from New York area collections, explores Pissarro's rural and urban motifs and the social ideologies and aesthetic theories that concerned him throughout his career. |
Talks
The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA, will present a talk, The Louvre from the Pont Neuf by Camille Pissarro, April 10, 2008 at 12:30 p.m. The talk, by Sarah Lees, associate curator of European art, is free with gallery admission. Part of their “Looking at Lunchtime” series.
Bibliography / Suggestions for Further Reading (Print Sources)
This list of books is not meant to be exhaustive. For a very complete, well-organized list of the Pissarro literature up to 1980, see the bibliography compiled by Martha Ward, in Christopher Lloyd. et al., Camille Pissarro, 1830-1903, exhibition catalogue (London: Arts Council and Boston: MFA, 1980), pages 250-261.
Oeuvre Catalogues
Brettell, Richard R. and Christopher Lloyd. The Drawings of Camille Pissarro in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Oxford: Clarendon, 1980.
Delteil, Loys. Le Peintre-graveur illustré: Tome XVII: Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley. Paris, 1923.
Pissarro, Joachin and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts. Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of Paintings. Milan and Paris: Skira/Wildenstein, 2006.
Pissarro, Ludovic-Rodolphe and Lionello Venturi. Camille Pissarro: son art, son oeuvre. 2 v. Paris, 1939. Reprint, with updated bibliography: San Francisco, 1989
Pissarro’s Letters
Bailly-Herzberg, Janine, ed. Correspondance de Camille Pissarro. 5 v. v. 1: Paris: PUF, 1980; v. 2-5: Paris: Valhermeil, 1986-1991.
* Pissarro, Camille. Letters to his Son Lucien. Ed. John Rewald. Trans. Lionel Abel. 3rd ed. Mamaroneck, NY, 1972.
General Works
* Cogniat, Raymond. Pissarro. Paris: Flammarion, 1978. English Edition: Tr. Alice Sachs. New York: Crown, 1975.
* Lloyd, Christopher. Camille Pissarro. New York: Skira/Rizzoli, 1981.
* Lloyd, Christopher. Pissarro. London and New York: Phaidon. 1979. New edition, revised and enlarged with notes by A. Renshaw: London: Phaidon, 1992.
Lloyd, Christopher, et al. Camille Pissarro, 1830-1903. Exhibition catalogue. London: Arts Council and Boston: MFA, 1980.
* Pissarro, Joachim. Camille Pissarro. New York: Abrams, 1993.
* Pissarro, Joachim Stephanie Rachum. Camille Pissarro: Impressionist Innovator.. Exhibition catalogue. Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1994.
Retrospective Camille Pissarro. Exhibition catalogue. Tokyo: Isetan Museum, 1984.
* Rewald, John. Pissarro. Paris, 1962. Reduced text, tr: Pissarro, London and New York, 1963.
* Shikes, Ralph E. and Paula Harper. Pissarro: His Life and Work. New York: Horizon, 1980.
Thomson, Richard. Camille Pissarro: Impressionism, Landscape and Rural Labor. Exhibition catalogue. London: Herbert, 1990.
Specialized Studies
Brettell, Richard R. Pissarro and Pontoise: The Painter in a Landscape. With the assistance of Joachim Pissarro. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1990.
* Brettell, Richard R and Joachim Pissarro. The Impressionist and the City: Pissarro's Series Paintings. Exhibition catalogue. London: Royal Academy and New Haven : Yale UP, 1992.
Brettell, Richard R. and Karen Zukowski. Introd. Joachim Pissarro. Camille Pissarro in the Caribbean, 1850-1855: Drawings from the Collection at Olana. Exhibition catalogue. St. Thomas, USVI: Hebrew Congregation, 1996.
Lloyd, Christopher, ed. Studies on Camille Pissarro. London and New York: Routledge, 1986.
Shapiro, Barbara Stern. Camille Pissarro: The Impressionist Printmaker. Exhibition catalogue. Boston: MFA, 1973.
Ward, Martha. Pissarro, Neo-Impressionism, and the Spaces of the Avant-Garde. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1996.
*Books marked with an asterisk are often available at medium-sized public libraries. The others are available at major public research libraries and university libraries. Some of the books listed are out of print, but you may find them for sale at an antiquarian bookseller such as
http://www.abebooks.com/Bibliography updated: December 1, 2007
More about Camille Pissarro (Online Sources)
Pissarro's Art Reflects St. Thomas Roots
From CNN.com, an intriguing article about the influence of Pissarro's years in St. Thomas on his subsequent career, including remarks by art historians Joachim Pissarro and Ivan Gaskell.
Le Monde des Arts: Dossier Camille Pissarro
Useful site in French, including a detailed biography of Pissarro, and unusually wide selection of his works.
Stern Pissarro Gallery
This firm in London, England specializes in works of art by Camille Pissarro and his descendants. The site provides biographies of nine Pissarro artists: Camille Pissarro, his five sons, two grandchildren and great-granddaughter (who is also co-director of the gallery). Included are good color reproductions of paintings, drawings and prints in the gallery's collection, as well as a very useful family tree.
Pissarro Page: Hebrew Congregation of St. Thomas
A very attractive page, which describes the 1996-97 exhibition of early Pissarro Drawings from Olana, organized by the Jewish Museum, New York City, and by the Hebrew Congregation of St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands.
Musée Camille Pissarro, Pontoise
Information about this delightful small museum, located in the French town where Pissarro lived and painted for fifteen years. Click here for hours and directions to museum . The museum located in a park high above the Oise River valley, includes works by Pissarro and his associates.
Artcyclopedia
An excellent portal, which provides access to images by Pissarro (and over 7,000 other artists) on museum and other web sites.
Insecula
There is more than meets the eye on this innovative French/English site. Be sure to click on "see all the works" for the full selection. Also, select "Place(s) related" and you will be taken to see Pissarros in museums around the world; the Java panoramas are impressive. Click on "Connection" to study his associates. Unfortunately the link to an 1877 Zola article seems to go nowhere....
National Gallery of Art, Washington: Artist Search
The National Gallery of Art's collection of Pissarro is one of the best in the world. This page helps you search for Pissarro, or for any other artist in their collection. Many of the objects are reproduced (including splendid details). In many cases, they provide a bibliography, exhibition history and provenance (a list of previous owners). An excellent resource!
Art Imagebase: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Search the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and find 23 Pissarros--paintings, drawings, and prints.
The Webmuseum, Paris
This convenient site provides quality images of several of Pissarro's paintings.
Carol Gerten's Fine Art: A Virtual Art Museum
This site, created and maintained by Carol L. Gerten, contains quality images of 22 paintings by Pissarro, representing a broad range of his work.
The Mother of All Art History Link Pages
This is a wonderful starting place for finding art historical resources on the Web, including images, text resources, museum information, links, and more. It was originally created by Andrew Midkiff, and is now maintained by Pat Young, School of Art and Design, University of Michigan.
Art History Resources on the Web
This is one of the best list of links available, well-organized by chronological period, with the main emphasis on Western Art. The page was created by L.C.E. Witcombe at Sweet Briar College.
Claude Bonin-Pissarro
This artist, a grandson of Camille Pissarro, lives in the south of France. The site enables you to view a number of his colorful Fauvist paintings and to learn more about his career.
Corinne Pissarro
Corinne Pissarro, an artist who makes her home in Ireland, presents her vibrant still-life paintings on this site.
Pissarro Miscellany (Just for Fun)
Great art seems to make people hungry, because there are at least three restaurants around the world bearing the Pissarro name:Pissarro's Bistro and Hotel in Hastings, England,
Pissarro Restaurant in West London, with its lovely riverside setting, and
Pissarro, a pizzeria in Jerusalem
Allison MacDuffee is a Sessional Lecturer at the University of Toronto and a Course Director at York University. Born in Toronto, she received her Bachelor's degree in Art History from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, one of the loveliest cities in Canada. She went on to do her M.A. at Queen's with a thesis on "Camille Pissarro's Market and Fair Scenes, 1881-1895," written under the supervision of Dr. Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski.
Her Ph.D. dissertation, completed in 2004 at the University of Michigan under the supervision of Professor Howard Lay, is entitled "Camille Pissarro: Modernism, Anarchism, and the Representation of 'The People,' 1888-1903." .
To comment on this page, please write to Allison MacDuffee: studiousalli@yahoo.ca However, please note that, because of my academic workload, I cannot answer research queries. Thank you for your understanding.
