Camille Pissarro and His Painter Children
Camille Pissarro, the elder statesman of Impressionism, raised a whole dynasty of painters: five of his sons became artists, and the line continues today.
Few families in art history have produced so many painters across so many generations from a single father.
The five painter sons
Pissarro five sons all painted. The eldest, Lucien, settled in England and became a fine artist and printer. Georges, known as Manzana, worked in painting and design.
Felix, nicknamed Titi, showed real promise but died young of tuberculosis. Ludovic Rodo became a painter and art historian, and the youngest, Paul Emile, carried the style into the twentieth century.
A father who taught them all
Pissarro encouraged every one of his children to draw and paint, treating his home as a kind of studio school.
Generous and patient, he was also a mentor to other artists, including Cezanne and Gauguin, so the teaching instinct ran deep.
Loss in the family
Not all the story is happy. His daughter Jeanne, called Minette, died at just nine years old, a loss that marked some of his most tender paintings.
Another daughter, also named Jeanne and nicknamed Cocotte, lived on, but the early deaths of children shadowed the family.
Roots and revolution
Camille Pissarro was born on the Caribbean island of St Thomas, then a Danish colony, and came late and poor to French painting. A committed anarchist, he believed deeply in ordinary people, which shows in his scenes of peasants and markets.
During the war of 1870 he fled his home, and Prussian soldiers used it as a shelter, destroying a huge number of his early canvases. Yet the family painting line survived him and continues among his descendants today.
Questions about the Pissarro family
How many of his sons painted?
Five of them became artists.
Who was the most successful?
Lucien, who built a career in England.
Did the line continue?
Yes, descendants paint to this day across several generations.
Who did Camille mentor?
His own children, plus Cezanne and Gauguin.
A dynasty that never stopped painting
The Pissarro family has produced working painters across roughly seven generations, an unbroken artistic line that began with one patient Impressionist father. More on him in the Camille Pissarro guide.