Born in Paris in 1863, Lucien Pissarro was the eldest son of Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), considered the founding father of the Impressionist movement, as well as championing the post-Impressionists, including Cezanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Van Gogh. This context was critical in informing Lucien’s own artistic career.

He showed with his father in the last Impressionist exhibition in 1886 and worked with Paul Signac and Vincent van Gogh, who dedicated an 1887 painting, Basket of Apples, ‘à l’ami Lucien Pissarro’ (Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo). He also exhibited at the Societé des Artistes Indépendants in Paris for the first time in 1886, and in 1888 was on the Hanging Committee with Signac and Georges Seurat, alongside whose work he exhibited under the title of ‘Neo-Impressionist’ in Paris in December 1892 - January 1893 and December 1893 - January 1894.

Lucien had first visited England with his father and family in 1870–1 during the Franco–Prussian war, and he was to settle there permanently from 1890. The move was in part due to his admiration for William Morris and the illustrators of the Arts and Crafts movement, and his subsequent marriage to Esther Bensusan, herself an engraver, designer and printer. Inspired by William Morris’s Kelmscott Press, in 1894 they established the Eragny Press at their home in Epping, Essex, named after his family residence in France and which was active until 1914.

Lucien exhibited at the New English Art Club in 1904. He was invited to join Walter Sickert’s Fitzroy Street Group in 1907, becoming acquainted with those who went on to form the Camden Town Group in 1911. Pissarro’s presence in England was therefore significant for a new generation of modern painters. He represented a direct link to the origins of Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, his father Camille being a great inspiration, as well as his friends Seurat, Signac and van Gogh. The influence of Pissarro’s style and technique can be traced in the work of Spencer Gore, Harold Gilman, William Ratcliffe and James Bolivar Manson.