Joachim Pissarro

Pissarro was born in Caen, Calvados, Normandy. He is the great-grandson of impressionist painter Camille Pissarro. He spent much of his childhood in Suisse Normande with his grandparents surrounded by art and artists. Pissarro studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and graduated with a M.A. from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. In 2001, he received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in History of Art. Pissarro's dissertation was entitled: "Individualism and inter-subjectivity in modernism: two case studies of artistic interchanges. Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) and Paul Cézanne (1839–1906): Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) and Jasper Johns (1930–)".

• Illustration — Pissarro studied at Hunter College: here, West (background) and East Buildings In 1983, Pissarro began working on the Catalogue Raisonné of Camille Pissarro under John Rewald. In 1984, Pissarro was the director of Impressionist modern paintings and sculptures for Phillips Auction House in London. He founded the department of modern Impressionist painting in the department of New York. Between receiving his master's and his PhD, Pissarro began his teaching career as a visiting lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin. During this time, he also started his career as a curator, being an independent curator at institutions such as the Dallas Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Royal Academy, London. In 1994, Pissarro was named chief curator of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. In 2000, Pissarro began working in New York City as a member of the Advisory Committee on Archives, Library, and Research at the Museum of Modern Art. In 2003, he became curator of the MoMA’s Painting and Sculpture department. He has been an adjunct curator at the MoMA since 2007. Based in New York City for most of his career, Pissarro’s reputation as a highly esteemed art historian has allowed him to work with artists all over the world, contemporary and classical. He continues to work as an independent curator and research consultant. In 2023, Pissarro was named the cultural attache of France’s Normandy region.

Pissarro has had an extensive career as a curator. He has worked for both internationally acclaimed museums and as a self-employed research consultant. He frequently works with contemporary artists, but also draws much inspiration from impressionist artists such as Cezanne, Van Gogh, Monet, and his great-grandfather. From 1988 to 1993, he was an independent curator with the Dallas Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Royal Academy of London. Pissarro served as Chief Curator at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, TX from 1994 to 1997. While at the Kimbell, Pissarro curated Matisse and Picasso: A Gentle Rivalry with Yve-Alain Bois. In 1999 he worked as a visiting lecturer at Sydney University and Melbourne University and ran a seminar on the Asia-Pacific Triennial at the Brisbane Art Gallery. From 1997 to 2000, Pissarro served as the Seymour H. Knox Jr. Curator of European and Contemporary Art at the Yale University Art Gallery and was adjunct professor in the Department of the History of Art. Exhibits curated while at Yale include Jasper Johns Recent Paintings (with Richard Field and Gary Garrels, 2000); After looking at Chinese Rocks: Brice Marden: Work in Progress (1999); and Post-Modern Transgressions (1999). Pissarro supervised the first reinstallation of the modern and contemporary collection at the Yale University Art Gallery and focused on the recent history of the Yale School of Art, leading to an exhibition entitled Then and Now and Later (co-curated with Thomas Crow, 1998). The exhibit featured the art of Yale alumni including Dawoud Bey, Gregory Crewdson, John Currin, Ann Hamilton, Roni Horn, Abelardo Morell, Jessica Stockholder, Peter Wegner, and Lisa Yuskavage. From 2003 to 2007 he served as a curator in painting and sculpture for the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Notable exhibitions Pissarro curated include Pioneering Modern Painting: Cézanne and Pissarro 1865–1885 (2005) and Out of Time: A Contemporary View (2006, with Eva Respini). A number of Pissarro's exhibitions have toured nationally and worldwide such as: • Monet and the Mediterranean (1997–98); shown at the Kimbell Art Museum and Brooklyn Museum; • Georges de La Tour (1996–97), co-organized with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in collaboration with Philip Conisbee, and shown at the Kimbell Art Museum and the National Gallery; • The Impressionist and the City: Pissarro's Series (1992–93); shown at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

• Illustration — Hay Harvest at Éragny (1901) by Camille Pissarro (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa) Pissarro is the great grandson of Camille Pissarro, a key painter in the Impressionist movement and the only artist to have his work shown at all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions. Camille Pissarro was a mentor to artists such as Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin.

• Illustration — MOCA inspired Pissarro — here, downtown buildings and Mark Thompson's Airplane Parts sculpture

Pissarro and art critic David Carrier—both with a background in philosophy—co-authored a book called Wild Art (Phaidon Press), which released October 14, 2013. The book features 10 chapters of about 50 works each showcasing alternative art genres such as street art, food art, minuscule art, ice, and sand sculptures. Carrier and Pissarro explore artwork that has notoriety outside the world of high art and, according to Huck Magazine, argue "for recognition of artwork that is made and displayed far from the beaten track." Pissarro and Carrier were partly inspired by the exhibition Art in the Streets (2011) at Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which was the first time a major art museum in America curated street art and graffiti. They coined the term "wild art" to mean the world of art beyond the established art world. Wild art is the equivalent of what we call wild versus domesticated animals or plants.