Glasgow and Camille Pissarro

I spent much of my teens and twenties living in Glasgow, the commercial capital of Scotland.  I look back on that time with great affection and take every opportunity to return to the city for a refresher course in Glaswegian.  It has changed a good deal since I lived there, mostly for the better, it is now a much cleaner and more pleasant place to live, though I do miss some of the wonderful department stores I used to haunt.   

One of the reasons for this change was that it was declared the European City of Culture in 1990 which has boosted its tourist trade enormously.  I am mentioning this because it leads to the other part of the title of this post, Camille Pissarro.

In the Year of Culture I visited The Burrell Collection, then a newly built museum, for the very first time. I was attending an evening  reception for the Embroiderers' Guild, but while we were mingling and enjoying the experience of a quiet museum, a private view of the works of Camille Pissarro was also taking place - it was an evening to remember! 

Pissarro is one of my favourite artists.  Every time I come across an impressionist painting that I like, it's usually painted by him.  He is very versatile and as you can see from the above picture, he can paint as prettily as Renoir, though I particularly love his street and river scenes -

Then there are his landscapes -

and he can do portraits too -

Self Portrait

Luckily we have some of  his paintings here at the National Musuem of Wales, so I don't have to go too far to see the real thing.  However, on that evening in The Burrell, paintings from all over the world had been gathered, so we could study, compare and admire them at our leisure in wonderful surroundings.  I shall never forget it!

If you would like to see more paintings click here - if you scroll down there's a video!.