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Impressions

"'Pissarro

SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to The Jewish News

Newly
discovered works
cast a new light
on the early
years of one of
the founders of
Impressionism.

n exhibition of 45 recently
discovered early drawings
and paintings attributed to
Camille Pissarro, a founder
of the French Impressionist move-
ment, remains on view through Nov.
16 at The Jewish Museum in New
York.
Camille Pissarro in the Caribbean,
1850-1855: Drawings from the
Collection at Olana showcases
Pissarro's earliest drawings, oil
sketches, sketchbook sheets
and watercolors, precursors to
Impressionism.
These works, never before
exhibited in the continental
United States, draw attention
to the formative years of the
artist, who was born to Jewish
parents on St. Thomas in
1830. The show premiered in
St. Thomas last year to mark
the 200th anniversary of the
Hebrew congregation there.
The exhibition is part of a col-
lection from the Olana State
Historic Site in New York, home
of the 19th-century landscape
painter Frederic Church.
Many of the drawings,
assumed for years to be by
Pissarro's painter friend and col-
league, Danish artist Fritz Melbye,
recently were discovered to have
been done by Pissarro.
The scenes of St. Thomas and
other Caribbean islands provide
evidence that Pissarro created sig-
nificant work in his homeland
before he left for Paris.
"What is startling is the fact that
virtually every subject essayed by
Pissarro after his conversion to
Impressionism in the late 1860s has
its origins in his early work," said Dr.
Richard Brettell, exhibition curator.
While scholars are now sure that
the vast majority of the 440-work col-

Suzanne Chessler is a Farmington
Hills-based freelance writer.

10/31
1997

96

lection from Olana is by Camille
Pissarro and Fritz Melbye, the process
of sorting out which artist did which
drawing and how they learned from
each other is only beginning.

C

amille Pissarro (1830-1903),
one of the leaders of the
French Impressionists, was
born in Charlotte Amalie,
the capital of St. Thomas in the
Virgin Islands.
His family was descended from
Portuguese Jews, who in the mid-18th

On our /NE cover is The Path
(1889) by Camille Pissarro, a paint-
ing on view at the Detroit Institute
of Arts. Other works by Pissarro at
the DIA are Paysans portant du foin,
print; Self Portrait, drawing; The
Pond at Kew Garden, drawing; Les
cheminaux, print; and The Kitchen
at Piette's, Monoucault, painting.

century had settled in Bordeaux,
France, and were established in the
import-export trade.
Pissarro's father had been sent in
1824 to look after the family's busi-
ness in St. Thomas, then a free port
under the tolerant rule of the Danish
monarchy.
Jews resided on St. Thomas as early
as 1740, and the first Hebrew congre-
gation was founded there in 1796.
Pissarro's father was a member even
though there was some objection due
to the fact that he had married the
widow of his uncle in
1826.
Their sons, includ-
ing Camille (whose full
name was Jacob
Abraham Camille),
were duly registered in
the synagogue ledger
and circumcised.
To prepare him for a
business career,

•

Left: From "Camille Pissarro in the
Caribbean"• Boy With Jug -, graphite on
paper.

Top: From "Camille Pissarro in the
Caribbean"• Scene at Water's Edge, oil
on canvas, signed "Camille Pissarro."

Above: From "Camille Pissarro in the
Caribbean':• Ship in Harbor, graphite,
ink on paper, attributed to Camille
Pissarro.

C.,

