Camille Pissarro Impressionist By: Shannon Romig

Camille Pissarro Camille Pissarro (July 10, 1830 – November 13, 1903) was a French Impressionist painter. Camille Pissarro was born in Saint-Thomas, Virgin Islands.

Family Background Abraham Gabriel Pissarro, of Sephardic Jewish ancestry, and Rachel Manzano-Pomié, a Dominican of Spanish descent, gave birth to Pissarro. The Pissarro's operated a dry goods store in what is now known as the Pissarro Building, in Queen's Quarter, Charlotte Amalie.

Childhood Pissarro was the third son of a Jewish merchant of French, originally Portuguese, descent. His family lived above their shop on Charlotte Amalie, the main street of St. Thomas. When Camille was 12 years old, his parents sent him away to a school in Passy, near Paris. The young Pissarro showed an early talent for drawing, and he began to visit the collections of the Louvre.

Art Training When Camille was 12, his parents sent him away to a school near Paris. The young Pissarro showed an early talent for drawing, and he began to visit the collections of the Louvre. At age 17 he returned to St. Thomas, where his father expected him to enter the family business. Pissarro was more interested in sketching at the harbor, however, and, after meeting the visiting Danish painter Fritz Melbye, he sailed with the older artist to Venezuela in November when he returned to St. Thomas in August 1854, his parents finally realized that no amount of argument would change their son's determination to be a painter, and so in the fall of 1855 he left home for the last time, bound for Paris.

Influenced.. P issarro had great influence on the impressionists and their followers, including the neoimpressionist Georges Seurat, whose pointillist technique the older painter emulated after 1886.

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