Biography

LUDOVIC RODOLPHE PISSARRO

1878-1952

Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro was born on the 21st of November 1878, as the fourth son of Jacob Camille Pissarro. He was named after Camille’s close friend, the painter Ludovic-Piette, who had died in the previous year. He soon came to be known as Rodo, and usually signed his works Ludovic-Rodo.

In 1894, at the age of sixteen, Rodo published his first wood engraving in the anarchist journal written in the vernacular of the working class, Le Pere Peinard. When Camille left France for the safety of Belgium during the anarchist upheavals of this year, Rodo joined him there and no doubt became well acquainted with the ideas about decorative art of Theo van Rysselberghe and Henry van de Velde. One of Camille’s closest friends at this time was the painter Maximilien Luce, who shared his political views and was always welcome at Eragny. Rodo, too, became friendly with Luce, who taught him some wood engraving techniques.

Rodo visited Lucien in London in 1898, then joined Camille in Amsterdam where they found a large Rembrandt exhibition fascinating. Rodo and Georges shared a studio in Montmartre in this year, and then in the following year they went to Moret-sur-Loing where they visited Sisley. As Camille’s son, Rodo cam to know many artists, some of them coming to prominence at this time like Monet, others like Sisley and Camille himself, finding it more difficult to establish themselves, and he was very well aware of the perils of being a professional artist.

Rodo divided his time largely between Moret, where Georges lived, and Paris, but he traveled extensively, spending some of his time with his father in Dieppe in 1901 and again the following year when, with Julie, he, Cocotte and Paulemile stayed at Berneval. He was with his father during his last days, at the end of 1903, writing to Lucien: “The greatest surgeon in the world has been consulted, but he did not say what the trouble is. He only wrote a complicated prescription.”

The impact of Camille’s art and teaching on Rodo was obviously considerable, but in his own work he aligned himself more closely to artists like Toulouse-Lautrec, Maurice Vlaminck and Raoul Dufy. He found the nightlife of Paris, its cabarets, night-clubs and theaters, compelling subjects for painting, and he participated in the Fauve exhibition at the Salon des Independents in 1905. Like Lucien, he also spent a considerable amount of time in London, and many of his paintings are of familiar London landmarks. Followings his father’s example, Rodo painted these views from upper-floor windows, at somewhat of a remove from the bustle of traffic and pedestrians on the street below. He found life in England difficult, and was several times rejected by the New English Art Club. Like his father, he found that such rejections made him consider alternative forms of exhibition and, with Lucien, he established the Monarro Group, formed in 1915, with the aim of exhibiting work by contemporary artists inspired by Impressionism.

Rodo is perhaps most remembered today for undertaking the cataloguing of his father’s oeuvre. This project took him more than twenty years, and resulted in the two-volume publication, which is to this day the standard work, being published in 1939 with an introductory critical essay by Lionello Venturi. Rodo told Lucien that the compilation of this catalogue was a fascinating task, revealing as it did “the work of the artist, its highs and lows, its progress as a whole through acquired experience.” Throughout his life the influence of Camille was paramount: through his gentle guidance Rodo was encouraged to become an artist, and was introduced to many of the leading figures in the contemporary art world, and through his cataloguing of Camille’s work Rodo’s name is one familiar to generation after generation of art historians, many of whom may not know his own artistic production.

Gallerie Je Reviens is proud and privileged to present the work of Ludovic-Rodolphe Pissarro for your viewing pleasure and consideration.