LONDON, ENGLAND.- The National Gallery presents today "Pissarro in London," on view through 3 August 2003. Generously supported by Martin Randall Travel. Camille Pissarro was unique among the French Impressionists for his interest in painting the suburbs of London. This exhibition marks the centenary of his death by bringing together a small group of paintings made on his four visits to London. The areas he painted range from Norwood and Crystal Palace in south London to the Serpentine in Hyde Park and Kew in west London. The exhibition gives us a sense of Pissarro’s approach to London in his depiction of these areas, which are largely outside the usual ’tourist’ localities. Pissarro was a central figure in the Impressionist group. He was the only Impressionist to show at all eight group exhibitions, and was a mentor and teacher to many other painters, among them Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh. His visits to London ranged over more than a quarter of a century and the paintings shown here display the changes in his style and palette that occurred over these years, but his close observation, and love of the everyday and the mundane details which distinguish place, and his affection for the city all remain constant.
The first visit was made in 1870-1, to escape the Franco-Prussian War. Pissarro and his family stayed in Upper Norwood, which he described as a ’charming suburb’. Pissarro painted the newly-developing suburbs and the railway that linked them to central London. He was particularly fascinated by the area’s major landmark, the Crystal Palace, and by the contrast between Paxton’s glass and steel structure and the neighboring red brick terraced houses.
He did not return to London for almost two decades. When he did, in 1890, it was to visit his son Georges, and later visits were also to see his family - his sons Lucien and Félix also lived in London. In 1892 he stayed in Kew, and was full of admiration for Kew Gardens. He was an unlikely cricket enthusiast, and painted an impromptu game that took place on Kew Green late one summer afternoon. Five years later, on his last visit, he was in London at the time of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, staying this time in Stamford Brook in west London, painting the common, the local railway line and surrounding houses, many of which survive today.