Orovida Pissarro 1893-1968
In the years following the end of the Second World War, Orovida's work became largely focused on groups of individuals, typically captured in close proximity to one another and carrying out everyday tasks from riding on the bus to apple picking. These paintings display a strong sense of humanity and may reflect a heightened sense of community in the wake of the widespread displacement caused by the war. Refugees - sometimes referred to by the artist as 'Six Refugees', although there are, in fact, a total of seven figures in the painting - reflects these concerns and appears to be the only work from this period that directly explores the subject of displacement, although other works including ‘Negro Family’ and ‘The Fish Queue’ demonstrate her interest in ethnically and culturally diverse communities.
The death of the artist’s father Lucien Pissarro in 1944, had a profound impact on Orovida's life and work as she moved away from tempera towards oils, partly because of the shortage of eggs during the war, but it has also been suggested that this move may have been a tribute to her father and the family tradition of painting in oils. She continued to use oils frequently until the end of her life, also indicating her freedom to work in this medium once liberated from the direct comparison between her own painting and that of her father.