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Camille Pissarro was born on the island of St Thomas in the Danish West Indies and moved to Paris in 1855 to train as a painter. He studied at the Académie Suisse, absorbed Corot and the Barbizon landscapists, and became the only artist to show in all eight Impressionist exhibitions (1874–86). Rural and urban motifs—orchards, boulevards, harbours—were painted outdoors and reworked in series as light and season changed.
Important works include Boulevard Montmartre series canvases such as Boulevard Montmartre at Night (1897, National Gallery, London), The Côte des Bœufs at L’Hermitage (1877, National Gallery, London), and harbour views of Rouen and Le Havre held in museums including the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In the mid-1880s he briefly adopted Neo-Impressionist technique before returning to a freer stroke.
Pissarro mentored younger painters including Cézanne, Gauguin, and, by example, van Gogh; Cézanne later called him “a father for me.” His steadiness, collaborative ethos, and lifelong study of atmosphere place him at the organisational and moral centre of Impressionism.