Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro was the son of a prosperous Jewish merchant, Abraham Gabriel Pissarro, and Rachel Manzano-Pomié. Growing up in the Carribean isle of St. Thomas, he showed an early interest in art, but was expected to work in his father's dry goods store. Because he was unable to obtain his father's permission to study art, he ran away to Caracas in 1853 and remained there for two years with the Danish painter Fritz Melbye. Finally, Pissarro's father relented, and in 1855 he sent him to Paris to study. There Pissarro allied himself with Degas, Monet and Cézanne, eventually becoming known as the Father of Impressionism, as much for his dogged adherence to Impressionist principles as to his warmth and generosity to other painters. His free, vital, light-filled landscapes are among the most prized acquisitions of museums around the globe.