Camille Pissarro: The Audacity of Impressionism
by Anka Muhlstein
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A Best Book of 2023 by The New YorkerFrom the acclaimed biographer and author of Balzac’s Omelette, an engaging new work on the life of “the father of Impressionism” and the role his Jewish background played in his artistic creativity.
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 show more Cassatt’s experimental work, a support to Cézanne 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 fostered an environment of freedom and autonomy. Biography & Autobiography. Nonfiction. Judaica. Art. show less
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Anka Muhlstein, a biographer and historian born in Paris, won the Goncourt Prize in 1996 for Letters from Russia. She won the History Prize of the French Academy for this book and one other and is the author of Monsieur Proust's Library and Balzac's Omelette: A Delicious Tour of French Food and Culture with Honor de Balzac. She resides in New York.
Common Knowledge
- First words
- Camille Pissarro was a most unusual man.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)That is the man I have tried to bring to life.
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