Exhibitions
Denver and 'The Honest Eye: Camille Pissarro's Impressionism', a journey through Impressionist work
The Honest Eye: Camille Pissarro's Impressionism is shaping up to be one of the most prominent and anticipated exhibitions of late 2025 in the United States, on view from October 26, 2025, to February 8, 2026, at the Denver Art Museum. The exhibition offers a profound and comprehensive view of the extraordinary career of Camille Pissarro, one of the key artists of French Impressionism, highlighting his unique role within the movement and the enduring influence his work has had on generations of artists and on the history of art in general.
The exhibition will bring together more than 80 works from nearly 50 museums and private collections around the world, including six pieces from the prestigious collection of the Denver Art Museum, thus offering visitors the opportunity to contemplate the richness, diversity and complexity of Pissarro's artistic legacy.
Camille Pissarro, View from my Window, Éragny (Vue de ma fenêtre, Éragny), 1886. Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology.
Co-organized with the Barberini Museum in Potsdam, the exhibition encompasses a wide range of genres and themes, including idyllic landscapes, vibrant cityscapes, still lifes, and portraits. This selection highlights the breadth and versatility of Pissarro's work, as well as the many influences that shaped his artistic practice, while he responded sensitively to the social, political, and cultural context of his time. Each painting reflects his keen eye and his ability to capture the essence of everyday life, whether in a rural landscape, the bustling port of Normandy, or the vibrant streets of Paris.
Camille Pissarro is widely recognized as one of the founders of the Impressionist movement in France, although his early artistic years unfolded in the Caribbean and South America. These distant roots imbued his work with a particular sensibility, which he combined with his interest in portraying everyday scenes of rural life and his affinity for anarchist and progressive ideals. His subjects, often simple and restrained in tone, conceal a wealth of detail that is only revealed upon closer inspection, demonstrating the meticulousness with which Pissarro observed nature and the life around him. His work is characterized by the carefully organized harmony of his compositions, the result of a balance between idealism, respect for reality, openness to new techniques, and a constant love of experimentation. Thematically, his paintings range from landscapes and gardens to family portraits, scenes of peasant life, and urban motifs, capturing both the serenity of the countryside and the energy of the city, with a sensitivity that continues to captivate viewers and experts alike.
Camille Pissarro, Hoar-Frost at Ennery (Gelée blanche à Ennery), 1873. Musée d'Orsay.
“Camille Pissarro was a father figure to many of the Impressionist artists, but only more recently has his own work been more thoroughly studied and appreciated. In recent years, exhibitions such as those in Williamstown and San Francisco, Ordrupgaard near Copenhagen, Basel, and Oxford have focused more on Pissarro. The retrospective in Potsdam and Denver builds on these important milestones in Pissarro research. Using the seven Pissarro works in the Hasso Plattner Collection as a starting point and the outstanding collaboration of the Denver Art Museum, we show how Pissarro’s Impressionism is closely linked to the group, yet at the same time unique,” said Ortrud Westheider, Director of the Barberini Museum.
