10 Underrated Impressionists you need to know
Discover 10 hidden gems of the impressionist world, including Gustave loiseau, Giuseppe De Nittis & Darío de Regoyos. Your next favorite impressionist is here.
1 | Giuseppe De Nittis (1846–1884)
An Italian from a small town near Bari who taught himself to paint, moved to Paris in his twenties, and became one of the sharpest observers of modern city life the Impressionist era produced. He had a particular talent for capturing movement and weather, rain on pavements, wind on a racecourse, crowds in motion.
Degas personally invited him to the very first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. He died of a stroke at 38, at the height of his career.
2 | Henri Martin (1860–1943)
He took the dot-based technique of Pointillism and loosened it into something more painterly and warm, applying it almost exclusively to the sun-flooded landscapes and terraces of southern France.
Unlike Seurat, who used the method for precise, almost frozen compositions, Martin was after atmosphere and light. The French government commissioned him to decorate the Capitole in Toulouse and the Sorbonne in Paris, major public institutions, which tells you how seriously he was taken in his lifetime.
3 | Peder Severin Krøyer (1851–1909)
A Danish painter who studied across Europe before settling in Skagen, a remote fishing village at the very tip of Denmark, where a group of Scandinavian artists gathered in the 1880s.
He became known for painting the particular blue light that falls at dusk on the Danish coast, a tone so distinctive it became associated with him specifically. He suffered from severe mental illness later in life, with periods of breakdown that interrupted his work for years. His wife, also a painter, eventually left him for a composer.
4 | Pierre Prins (1838–1913)
He was embedded in the Impressionist circle, close friends with Manet and Berthe Morisot, a regular presence at the cafés where the movement was being argued into existence. His subject was Paris at night, streets under gaslight, rain-slicked pavements, the city in low light and bad weather.
He almost never exhibited, which is the main reason his name disappeared while his friends became famous. Collectors who know him tend to be very quiet about it.