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.
Natan Altman’s portrait of Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) is his best-known work. He painted the famous poet in St. Petersburg in a cubist style, against a background of blue quartzlike and green…
Among the inspirations for Bar Lev’s paintings were American patchwork quilts, Mexican and Native American art, stained-glass windows, Russian constructivism, and pop art. She combined patterns and…