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Painting · Bathurst

Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro's parents ran a general merchandise business on St. Thomas. After attending boarding school in Paris, Pissarro returned to the West Indies to work for his father from 1847 until 1852. As an artist he was largely self-taught, receiving some instruction from Fritz Melbye (1826-1896), a Danish artist with whom he traveled to Venezuela in 1852. When Pissarro returned to Paris in 1855, he shared a studio with Anton Melbye (1818-1875), Fritz's brother, and with David Jacobsen (1821-1871). He took classes at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1856 and three years later attended the Académie Suisse, where he befriended artists such as Cézanne (q.v.), Monet (q.v.), and Guillaumin (q.v.). Corot (q.v.) encouraged him to paint landscapes around Paris, and he was listed as Corot's pupil in the catalogues of the Salons of 1864 and 1865. He had met Julie Vellay in 1860, with whom he would have eight children; they married in 1871. Pissarro exhibited regularly at the Salons from 1859 to 1870, although his work received little attention and he sold hardly anything. In 1866 he settled in Pontoise, often returning to Paris where he kept a studio. He frequented Émile Zola's "Thursdays" (weekly literary gatherings) and associated with Manet's (q.v.) artistic circle that gathered in the Café Guerbois. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) Pissarro fled with his family, first to Montfoucault and then to London, where he worked with Monet and Daubigny (q.v.) and was introduced to the dealer Durand-Ruel. In 1872 he returned to Pontoise, where he painted with Cézanne. Around 1869 Pissarro began painting in a purely impressionist style, and in 1874 he helped organize the first impressionist exhibition. He moved to Éragny-sur-Epte in 1884, where he came into contact with Seurat (q.v.) and Paul Signac (1863-1935) and subsequently began to work in a pointillist style. He eventually found this technique too limiting, and returned to an impressionist mode, often working in series. By the end of his career his landscapes and depictions of city life sold well, and in 1892 he was given a retrospective exhibition at Durand-Ruel. By now, the artist had developed strongly anarchist convictions. Pissarro not only painted and made drawings, he also experimented with etching and lithography.

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Development stand-in portrait: person in professional attire (not a photograph of Camille Pissarro)

Bathurst, New Brunswick

Selected work

PaintingPrintmakingBathurst

From the studio

5 works, from the studio to here.

  • Fishmarket

    Camille Pissarro · oil on canvas · 1902

    This impressive view of a bustling fish market belongs to a series of paintings that Pissarro made during the summer of 1902 depicting the harbor at Dieppe. Borrowing from the Impressionist method of portraying a modern city from a high vantage point, he enlivened the scene with rich, vibrant colors applied with energetic, broken brushstrokes. Ever concerned with the fleeting effects of atmosphere, Pissarro painted the interpenetration of industrial steam with the clouds in the brilliant, sunlit sky. Image and data from the Cleveland Museum of Art, released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

  • Self-Portrait

    Camille Pissarro · zinc etching with aquatint on light tan wove paper · 1885

    This print is one of Camille Pissarro’s few self-portraits and his only etched one. Made when he was around 60 years old, Pissarro presents himself as an aged and bearded artist wearing a soft hat and peering out of the picture frame through his half-moon spectacles. Pissarro made only 28 impressions of the print during his lifetime, most of which he gave to friends and family members. Image and data from the Cleveland Museum of Art, released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

  • Edge of the Woods Near L'Hermitage, Pontoise

    Camille Pissarro · oil on fabric · 1879

    Born to a French-Jewish family on St. Thomas island in the Caribbean, Pissarro painted this monumental landscape when he was desperately poor and struggling to sell his paintings. It depicts a man slumbering in the sun-dappled backwoods of the Hermitage, a rural village near Pontoise, where the artist had been living since 1872. Restricting his palette to pure hues, Pissarro applied brushstrokes in systematic diagonal patterns, producing an effect that he likened to knitting. This canvas was included in the fourth Impressionist exhibition of 1879. Image and data from the Cleveland Museum of Art, released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

  • The Lock at Pontoise

    Camille Pissarro · oil on fabric · 1872

    Pissarro was instrumental in developing the radically new Impressionist technique of painting quickly outdoors to capture fleeting effects of light and atmosphere. The rushing water and overcast sky in this view of a river lock near the artist’s home at Pontoise, a rural commune about 17 miles northwest of Paris, are rendered with rapid, broken brushstrokes of pure color. Painting directly on canvas without preliminary drawing, Pissarro may have executed this work in a single session. The shimmering surface of broken color conveys the sensation of natural, outdoor light. Image and data from the Cleveland Museum of Art, released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

  • La Roche-Guyon

    Camille Pissarro · etching · 1866

    A very early etching by the Impressionist artist Camille Pissarro, this view of the massive rocks at La Roche-Guyon reveals the artist’s painterly attitude toward printmaking. Using only the etched line and a layer of ink left on his printing plate's surface, Pissarro created a dramatic landscape filled with brilliant sunlight and soft shadows. Image and data from the Cleveland Museum of Art, released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

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