Impressionism Across Generations: The Pissarro Family Legacy
Impressionism Across Generations: The Pissarro Family Legacy brings together masterworks from the Pissarro family drawn from the IMA’s permanent collection, presented together for the first time. Featuring paintings by Camille Pissarro and his sons Lucien and Georges, the exhibition reveals how one family’s bold experimentation with paint brushwork and color helped shape the course of modern art. Spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the works offer a vivid introduction to major artistic movements—from Impressionism to Neo-Impressionism—while demonstrating the powerful role of family, mentorship, and collaboration in artistic innovation.
Known among his peers as a guiding force of Impressionism, Camille Pissarro mentored a generation of artists, including his own sons. The exhibition traces this intergenerational exchange, highlighting the development of Lucien and Georges as artists in their own right. Lucien, a pioneering Neo-Impressionist, even influenced his father’s practice, prompting Camille to briefly adopt the radical pointillist technique—an extraordinary example of artistic influence flowing from son to father.
This exhibition is made possible with support from Dr. Marian Pettengill.
Advance tickets recommended but not required
Included with General Admission and free for Members
Image credit:
Lucien Pissarro (French, 1863–1944), Interior of the Studio, 1887, oil on canvas, 25-1/4 x 31-1/2 in. (canvas); 31-1/16 x 37-3/8 x 3 in. (framed/Optium). Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Gift in memory of Robert S. Ashby by his family and friends, 1995.100.
