Camille Pissarro
Camille
Pissarro was one of the most influential members of the French Impressionist
movement. He was the only artist to participate in all eight of the
Impressionist exhibitions.
Born on July 10, 1830, in Saint Thomas in the Danish West Indies, Camille was
sent to school in Paris where he displayed a talent for drawing. He returned to
Paris in 1855, having convinced his parents of his determination to pursue a
career as an artist. He studied at the Academia Suisse with Monet and met Cé
zanne, Manet and Renoir.
The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 prompted Camille to move to
England. With Monet he painted a series of landscapes around Norwood and Crystal
Palace. On returning home to Louveciennes a year later, Camille discovered that
only 40 of his 1500 printings - almost twenty year's work - remain undamaged.
In 1872 he moved to Pontoise and remained there for ten years. Gauguin was among
the many artists to visit Camille there, and Cé zanne who lived nearby came for
long periods to work and learn. In his last years Camille divided his time
between the cities of Paris, Rouen and Le Havre and his home in Eragny where,
surrounded by his family and the works of his contemporaries, he finally started
to gain public recognition and became free from financial concerns. Camille
Pissarro died in 1903.
