Camille Pissarro was raised in a French Sephardic family on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas. In 1855, he left for Paris, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and began exhibiting in the Salon in 1859. In the 1870s, Pissarro helped give form to what became known as the Impressionist movement; he was the only artist who showed in all the group’s eight exhibitions, from 1874 to 1886. He gained fame particularly for his luminous landscapes and cityscapes, although he also painted human figures.
This is one of only four known self-portraits by Camille Pissarro. It was painted around the time that Pissarro and other rebellious artists broke from the traditional art establishment by forming…
My brothers and teachers: for some years, since I was enlightened by the luminous erudition of our pious forefathers, the rabbis in Babylon and the wise writers from Spain, my attention…
Sholem Aleichem’s grotesque story “The Haunted Tailor” tells of a poor, witless tailor who is sent on a mission to buy a milk-giving goat, who turns out to be possessed. In the Soviet Union, it was…