Paul Emile Pissarro (1884 - 1972): The Bridge Over The River

Paul Emile PISSARRO (1884-1972)The bridge over the river Watercolor on paperDimensions of the work: 23 x 31 cmSigned lower left.Provenance:- Galerie Delvaille, Paris- Private collection, ParisWatercolor in very good condition. Beautiful frame. OFFEREDDimensions with frame: 44 x 52 cmSold with invoice and certificate of authenticity.Fast and careful shipping with insurance.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 the most predisposed to painting: a white horse, drawn at the age of five, received praise from the writer Octave Mirbeau, his father, impressed, decided to keep it apart in his private collection, from then on he would not cease to support him in what became his passion. In 1899, Paul-Émile Pissarro went to follow classes in Gisors (Eure), but stopped after a few months in order to accompany his father on an artistic trip to Le Havre, Dieppe and Rouen. During the last years of his father's life, his family lived in Paris, where Paul-Émile studied at a private art academy, marking a difference in his path from that of his brothers and sisters who had mainly benefited from their father's tutoring. After his father's death in 1903, he returned to live with his mother in their summer house in Éragny, about thirty kilometers from Giverny where his godfather Claude Monet lived. Monet, who was very close to Camille, became his tutor and friend. He often visited Giverny, where Monet gave him lessons in painting and horticulture, encouraging him to follow in his father's footsteps: "Work! Research! Do as your father did."[ref. In 1905, with his brother Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro, he made his debut at the Salon des Indépendants (known that year as the Salon des Fauves) with his landscape Banks of the Epte at Eragny. The years 1908-1914 were difficult. In 1908 he worked as a mechanic and test pilot, then as a textile and lace designer, an activity that 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. Discharged during the First World War because of his poor health, Paul-Émile Pissarro took advantage of the war years to travel and paint, particularly 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. needed]. With the help of his brother, he exhibited in London, at the New English Art Club, the Baillie Gallery and 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 returning to Paris for the winter. In 1924, he bought a house in Lyons-la-Forêt1 (Eure), whose garden (which Monet drew2), the surrounding countryside and the Epte River inspired his paintings. His style became more defined towards the end of the 1920s: mixed tones and the use of a painting knife. He worked on a boat-studio. He practiced wood engraving and etching, some prints were published by Malcolm Salaman in 1919. In 1930, on the recommendation of Raoul Dufy, Paul-Émile Pissarro visited Swiss Normandy. He immediately fell in love with this region of Calvados, and particularly with Orne, which offered him new motifs for the canvases he sent to the Salon des Indépendants for the next thirty years. After divorcing his first wife, he moved to Swiss Normandy in 1934. 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.