PISSARRO : BOULEVARD MONTMARTRE

Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro, known as Camille Pissarro, was born on July 10, 1830 on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas, Danish West Indies; to Abraham Gabriel Pissarro, of Sephardic (or "Morrano") Jewish ancestry, and Rachel Manzano-Pomié, a Dominican of Spanish descent. His parents sent him to Paris at age 12 to a small boarding school. It was there that the director, seeing his interest in art, advised him to take "advantage of his life in the tropics by drawing coconut trees." When he returned to St. Thomas in 1847, this advice had been taken to heart.

He moved to Paris in 1855 and studied there with the French landscape artist Jean Baptiste Camille Corot. He later became associated with the Barbizon school. Afterwards, he came under the influence of Claude Monet and other impressionists. During the Franco German War he lived in England, where he made a study of the landscapes of Joseph Mallord Turner. On his return to France he settled in Normandy. An active, productive Master of his art until the end, Camille Pissarro succumbed to blood poisoning on 13 November, 1903 in Le Havre, France.

His landscapes have a naturalism that places him close to the Barbizon school and a firm classical structure shared only by his good friend Paul Cézanne. This Blvd Montmartre in Paris is part of a series of the same scene that he painted under different weather conditions in 1897.

In 1973 it went on auction for £ 161,764 in London ($275,000). The scene to the right is another version of Blvd Montmartre at night which is now property of the National Gallery London. Whilst in England in the 70s and back in the 90s, Pissarro was introduced to the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel who bought two of his London’ paintings. Durand-Ruel subsequently became the most important art dealer of the new school of French Inpressionism.

In March 1893, in Paris, Durand-Ruel organized a major exhibition of 46 of Pissarro's works along with 55 others by La Gandara. But while the critics acclaimed Gandara, their appraisal of Pissarro's art was less enthusiastic. During his lifetime, Camille Pissarro sold few of his paintings. By 2005, however, some of his works were selling in the range of $ 2 to 4 million.

Pissarro died in 1903 and was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

PISSARRO : LE RUISSEAU A OSNY

This brook at Osny was painted by French Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, who endured prolonged financial hardship in keeping faith with the aims of Impressionism. Despite acute eye trouble, his later years were his most prolific : in all, Pissarro painted several hundred canvasses. The Parisian and provincial scenes of this period include Place du Théâtre Français (1898) and Bridge at Bruges (1903).

Pissarro was born in St Thomas to Abraham Gabriel Pissarro, a Portuguese sephardic Jew and Rachel Manzana-Pomié, from the Dominican Republic. Pissarro lived in St. Thomas until age 12, when he went to a boarding school in Paris.

After the Franco-Prussian war, Pissarro stayed in London for many years where he came back many times after returning to France. Known as the "Father of Impressionism", Pissarro painted rural and urban French life, particularly landscapes in and around Pontoise, as well as scenes from Montmartre.

Camille's great-grandson, Joachim Pissarro, is currently the Head Curator of Drawing and Painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His great-granddaughter, Lélia, is a successful painter and resides in London. During his lifetime, Camille Pissarro sold few of his paintings.

This picture sold for 560 Pounds in London in 1922 and fetched 26,000 Guineas in 1965 (1 Guinea=1 Pound and 1 shilling). By 2005, however, some of his works were selling in the range of $ 2 to 4 million. In 1981, a record was set for the artist at Sotheby's impressionist and modern art auction in New York when La Rue Saint- Lazare sold for $ 4,512,806.

PISSARRO : LA ROUTE D'OSNY

This picture is by French painter Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) and represents the road of the small village of Osny not very far from Pontoise (France) where Pissarro established his workshop in 1882. From the 1870s onwards, Pissarro professed passionate disdain for the Salons and refused to exhibit at them. Among the Impressionists, only he and Degas persisted in their unwavering defiance of the Salons.

To the question, "What makes a true painter?" Pissarro would answer that a true painter is the one who can put two tones of color in harmony. In other words, Pissarro defines the true painting in specifically visusal terms. Pissarro was a descendant of a family from Braganza, a Portuguese medieval fortified city near the Spanish border. The family were Marranos - Sephardic Jews who had been prohibited to practice their own creed and forced to convert to Christianity or suffer at the hands of the Inquisition.

This picture painted in 1873 was bought in 1963 for $ 102,900 in London. It is today part of the E.G. Bührle collection in Zurich (Switzerland).