Camille Pissarro (10 July 1830 – 12 November 1903) was a French Impressionist painter. He was born on Saint Tomas in the Virgin Islands. Pissarro died in Paris.
He was the only artist to exhibit in both Impressionism and Post-impressionism forms. Pissarro learnt from great forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. He later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54.
In 1873 he helped establish a society of fifteen aspiring artists, holding the group together and encouraging the other members. Art historian John Rewald called Pissarro the “dean of the Impressionist painters", not only because he was the oldest of the group, but also "by virtue of his wisdom and his balanced, kind, and warmhearted personality”. Cézanne said "he was a father for me. A man to consult and a little like the good Lord". He was also one of Gauguin's mentors. Renoir referred to his work as “revolutionary”, through his artistic portrayals of the common man. Pissarro insisted on painting individuals in natural settings without "artifice or grandeur".
Pissarro is the only artist to have shown his work at all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions, from 1874 to 1886. He acted as a father figure to the Impressionists and, in varying degress, to all four of the major Post-impressionists including Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.