Paul Émile Pissarro (1884-1972) Attributed: "pond"

Paul Émile PISSARRO (1884-1972) Attributed: "Pond"; Oil on canvas, signed lower left, 50 x 61 cm
Paul-Émile Pissarro is the fifth and last son of Camille Pissarro and Julie Vellay. Raised in an artistic household like his brothers, it seems that he was best predisposed to painting: a white horse, drawn at the age of five, received praise from the writer Octave Mirbeau, his father, who was impressed. , decided to keep it apart in his private collection, from then on he will not stop supporting him in what becomes his passion. In 1899, Paul-Émile Pissarro left to take courses in Gisors (Eure), but stopped after a few months to accompany his father on an artistic journey, to Le Havre, Dieppe and Rouen. During the last years of his father's life, his family lived in Paris, where Paul-Émile studied in a private art academy, this marks the difference in his career from that of his brothers and sisters who mainly benefited from the tutoring of their father. After the death of his father in 1903, he returned to live with his mother in their summer home in Éragny, about thirty kilometers from Giverny, where his godfather Claude Monet resides. Monet, who was very close to Camille, becomes his tutor and friend. He often visited Giverny, where Monet gave him lessons in painting and horticulture, encouraging him in his father's footsteps: “Work! Search! Do as your father did. "[Ref. necessary] In 1905, with his brother Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro, he started at the Salon des Indépendants (called Le Salon des Fauves that year) with his Bords de l'Epte landscape in Eragny. The years 1908-1914 were difficult. In 1908 he worked as a mechanic and test pilot, then as a designer of textiles and laces, an activity which gave him some free time to devote to painting. While he was working at the lace factory, his brother Lucien Pissarro, then in London, asked him to send him some watercolors. The interest shown by British amateurs encouraged him to start painting again. With his young wife, Berthe Bennaiché, he moved to Burgundy. Reformed during the First World War because of his poor health, Paul-Émile Pissarro took advantage of the war years to travel and paint, in particular in the North of France. In a letter to Lucien in 1916 he wrote “I have seen superb things, I am filled with enthusiasm” [ref. necessary]. With the help of his brother, he exhibited in London, at the New English Art Club, at the Baillie gallery and at the Allied Artists Association. Paul-Émile Pissarro's painting was influenced by Paul Cézanne, whom he had met several times in Paris. In the 1920s, with his artist friends Kees van Dongen, Maurice de Vlaminck, André Dunoyer de Segonzac and Raoul Dufy, he traveled during the summer, painting in the French countryside and returned to Paris for the winter. In 1924, he bought a house in Lyons-la-Forêt1 (Eure), whose garden (which Monet designed2), the surrounding countryside and the Epte inspired his paintings. His style became clearer towards the end of the 1920s: mixed tones and use of the painting knife. He works on a workshop boat. He practices wood engraving and etching, some prints were published by Malcolm Salaman in 1919. In 1930, on the recommendations of Raoul Dufy, Paul-Émile Pissarro visited Normandy Switzerland. He immediately fell in love with this region of Calvados, and particularly the Orne, which offered him new motifs for the paintings he sent to the Salon des Indépendants for the next thirty years. After the divorce with his first wife, he moved in 1934 to Normandy Switzerland. Two years later he bought a house in Clécy with his second wife, Yvonne Beaupel, with whom he had three children, Hugues Claude, Yvon and Véra. The two sons both became artists. In 1967, Paul-Émile Pissarro exhibited individually for the first time at the Wally Findlay gallery in New York. Paul-Émile Pissarro died on January 20, 1972 in Clécy. Wikipedia