Camille Pissarro : The Audacity of Impressionism

The celebrated painter Camille Pissarro (1830 1903) occupied a central place in the artistic scene of his time: a founding member of the new school of French painting, he was a close friend of Monet, a longtime associate in Degas's and Mary Cassatt's experimental work, a support to Cezanne and Gauguin, and a comfort to Van Gogh, and was backed by the great Parisian art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel throughout his career.Nevertheless, he felt a persistent sense of being set apart, different, and hard to classify.Settled in France from the age of twenty-five but born in the Caribbean, he was not French and what is more he was Jewish.Although a resolute atheist who never interjected political or religious messages in his art, he was fully aware of the consequences of his lineage.Drawing on Pissarro's considerable body of work and a vast collection of letters that show his unrestrained thoughts, Anka Muhlstein offers a nuanced, intimate portrait of the artist whose independent spirit fos