PISSARRO, Camille (St. Thomas, 1830 – Paris, 1903)
Camille Pissarro was born on 10 July 1830 in Saint-Thomas, a small island in the Antilles. In 1841, his father sent him to complete his education in Paris, so that he could later take his place in the family firm. In 1852, he fled with the Danish painter Franz Melbye to Venezuela: a step that would determine his future, as Pissarro became a painter during this journey.
In 1855, he returned to Paris, where he met the realist painters Gustave Courbet and Camille Corot, the latter exerting a great influence over him. In 1859, he met Claude Monet, with whom he exhibited at the Salon des Refusés in 1863. In 1866, Pissarro moved to Pontoise, but was forced to leave the town during the Franco-Prussian war (1870–71) and moved to London. There, he and Monet, who had also left Paris, studied English landscape painting, particularly the works of Turner and Constable. In 1872, he returned to Pontoise where he worked with Cézanne. In the 1880s, he experimented with Pointillist and neo-Impressionist techniques, which he nevertheless abandoned around 1888.
Due to increasing problems with his eyesight, Pissarro was hardly able to paint outside after 1895, and his last views of Paris were created in hotel rooms that he rented for this purpose. Pissarro was the only Impressionist who took part in all eight of the Impressionist exhibitions from 1874 until 1886. His conciliatory skills earned him the respect of all the members of the group, to whom he had introduced Gauguin, Seurat, and Signac. He died blind, on 13 November 1903, in Paris. In his extensive oeuvre, Pissarro used a wide range of graphic techniques, as well as working in oil, pastels, and gouache.
Mar Borobia
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