Camille Pissarro canvas prints & artprints

Camille Pissarro was born on July 10, 1830, on the island of St. Thomas, now in the US Virgin Islands but then in the Danish West Indies. His father was a French citizen of Portuguese and Jewish descent who married his uncle’s window to settle the family estate. The marriage was a stir within their small Jewish community and as the result Pissarro and his siblings grew up as an outsider. At the age of 12, he was sent by his parents to boarding school in France. He then returned to his native island and got involved in his family’s mercantile business. In 1852, he moved to Venezuela with the Danish artist Fritz Melbye who encouraged him to pursue his passion for painting. In 1855, he returned to Paris and entered the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Suisse. He worked alongside two great French painters: Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet. He also joined a group of young artists including Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne. Like many of his contemporaries, he spent a lot of time in the surrounding of Paris, preferring to work outside than in his Parisian studio. The Franco-Prussian war forced him and the family he had founded with his mother’s maid to flee to London. During the 1880’s, Pissarro’s style evolved and he adopted a Post-Impressionist touch. He explored new techniques such as pointillism and build new friendships with artists including Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. Pissarro died on November 13, 1903, in Paris.