Camille Pissarro was born in 1830 in the French West Indies. When he was 25 years old, he moved to Paris to pursue his passion for creating art. For about the first ten years he was in France, Pissarro was under the tutelage of Corot, from whom he learned about etching. There, he developed an enduring interest in landscape and rustic subjects. In 1866, Manet befriended Pissarro, and introduced him to a coterie of artists who often met at the Café Guerbois in Paris. This group, with their unconventional aesthetic, eventually became the Impressionists. When the Franco-Prussian War erupted in 1870, Pissarro fled with his family to England. While in England, Pissarro met frequently with Claude Monet, who was a dear friend and mentor. In London, Pissarro became acquainted with Paul Durand-Ruel, another temporary expatriate, who later became Pissarro’s dealer in Paris. In 1871, the Pissarro family moved back to France, settling in Pontoise, a suburb of Paris. He invited Paul Cézanne to join him for a time. They worked together, and Cézanne considered Pissarro to be a teacher of his. In 1879, Degas conceived the idea of producing a journal of prints to be called Le Jour et la Nuit. Degas, Mary Cassatt, and Pissarro produced prints for the publication, though it was never actually published. Pissarro’s contribution was the estimable Paysage sou Bois à l’Hermitage (exhibited here). For the Impressionist show of 1880, Pissarro submitted four different states of this subject framed together — showing how very much he esteemed this plate. In 1885, Pissarro met Paul Signac and Georges Seurat, and thereafter dabbled in pointillism for a few years, but gave it up by around 1890. At the end of the summer of 1903, Pissarro moved back to Paris to work on a set of city views. Tragically, he contracted a virulent infection that ended his life at the age of seventy-four. A gentle, sensitive man, Pissarro left a legacy of prints, drawings, and paintings that reveal a sympathetic view of ordinary people and a love of natural beauty.