Camille Pissarro

Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro, known as Camille Pissarro, was born on July 10, 1830, on the island of Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands, then a Danish colonial possession. Son of a prosperous merchant family, he received an education that took him to Paris at age twelve to attend boarding school. Against his father's wishes, he firmly decided to dedicate himself to painting, studying at the Académie Suisse in the French capital. In 1852 he undertook a journey to Venezuela with Danish master Fritz Melbye, where he devoted himself fully to creating landscapes and genre scenes in Caracas and La Guaira.

Pissarro is considered one of the founders and the dean of Impressionism, being the oldest member of the group and the only artist to participate in all eight Impressionist exhibitions held between 1874 and 1886. From 1866 onwards he moved to Pontoise, where he lived much of his life outside Paris, dedicating himself primarily to painting landscapes and rural scenes of France. He was among the first to practice plein air painting with conviction, capturing the light, the moment, and the atmosphere characteristic of the Impressionist movement. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, he took refuge in London, where he studied English art and remained particularly fascinated by the landscapes of William Turner.

Throughout his career, Pissarro experimented with various techniques and styles. In the 1880s he explored pointillism and divisionism, which he considered "scientific impressionism," collaborating with artists such as Paul Signac and Georges Seurat, before returning to pure Impressionism. In 1883 art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel organized a solo exhibition in Paris featuring seventy of his works. In 1884 he moved to Eragny-sur-Epte, which became his permanent residence. In the final years of his life, vision problems forced him to abandon outdoor painting, but he continued to work from his studio and windows, painting urban scenes of cities such as Rouen, Le Havre, and Paris until his death on November 13, 1903. His influence extended to generations of artists, from Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin to Vincent van Gogh and Henri Matisse, consolidating his role as a decisive figure in nineteenth-century art.