He grew up in the artistic surroundings of the family household in Paris. Encouraged by his father, he began to draw at an early age. At fifteen Paul-Émile went to the Academy in Gisors, but left again after a few months to accompany his father on a painting tour of Le Havre, Dieppe and Rouen. On his return to Paris he went to a private art academy, unlike his siblings, who were mainly taught by their father.

On his father’s death in 1903, Paul-Émile returned to his mother in Éragny. The painter Claude Monet, who lived in the nearby Giverny, had been one of Camille’s closest friends and was Paul-Émile's godfather. After Camille’s death, he became a teacher and close friend to Paul-Émile. Paul Emile Pissarro frequently visited Giverny, where Monet taught him painting and gardening, encouraging him to follow in his father’s footsteps: “Work! Study! Do as your father did”.

In 1924 he bought a house in Lyons-la-Forêt, a small village near Éragny, whose garden (designed by Monet) and surroundings offered him subjects for paintings, in particular the pastures, meadows and hills through which the river Epte peacefully flows.