Pissarro Family Tree
It should be noted that the artists shown in blue on the family tree are not all the artists in the Pissarro family. They are purely the ones represented in the gallery.
Jacob Camille Pissarro, the undoubted master of the French Impressionist Movement, was born in 1830 and lived for 73 years producing some of the finest works of the Movement but, equally importantly, his paintings contributed to a change in the traditional perception of art at the time.
He was known not only for his fine painting but also for his ability to teach others; Gauguin, Van Gogh and Cézanne being three of his more renowned pupils. Camille Pissarro also taught all of his sons to paint but he recognised the need to limit his own influence on his children and, once they were competent with his Impressionist technique, he urged them to pursue an individual style. A harder but more caring taskmaster would be difficult to imagine; to the extent that four of his sons, Lucien, Ludovic-Rodo, Georges-Manzana and Paulémile became recognised in their own right. A fifth son, Félix, was also a talented artist but died at the early age of 23.
Both Lucien and Paulémile passed on this legacy; Lucien through his daughter Orovida and Paulémile through his son Hugues-Claude. Lucien’s and Orovida’s teacher-pupil relationship parallels that of Camille and Lucien in several ways, and she became proficient with the Impressionist technique before turning to a decorative style inspired by Japanese, Chinese and Indian art in the 1920’s. Like Orovida, Hugues-Claude was trained by his father as an Impressionist and has for many years painted in that style, although more recently a fresh bold approach to landscape and still life has emerged.
The tradition now continues through Lélia Pissarro, the daughter of Hugues-Claude, who studied with both her grandfather and her father although, unlike the other family members, she became an abstract painter before returning to Impressionism. Lélia now looks back to her great-grandfather’s style and to subjects celebrating the pastoral tranquillity of the late 19th century, painting scenes of her native France and the rural English countryside of her adopted home.
The extraordinary legacy of Camille Pissarro is the foundation of this outstanding family tradition which continues to be redefined and reshaped by successive generations of Pissarro artists, and it illuminates the enduring nature of Camille Pissarro’s Impressionist teachings within the family. It also reveals the incredible diversity of talents and styles represented in these artists’ works, all the more remarkable given their common root in Impressionism.