Alfred Sisley

b. October 30, 1839 and died January 29, 1899

Alfed Sisley was born to affluent English parents. His father was in the silk business, a lucrative vocation during the mid nineteenth century, and was able to send his son to study business in London at the age of eighteen. Ignoring his families ambitions for his future, Sisley pursued painting upon completing his collegiate education. The consummate landscape painter who was inspired by such British artists as Turner, Constable, and Bonnington soon found himself amongst new influences when he returned to Paris in 1862. Sisley began to study at the atelier of Charles Gleyere, the Swiss artist whose students also included Renoir, Monet, and Whistler. The young artists became acquainted with one another; and together with Pissarro, began the stylistic movement known as Impressionism. Painting in the plein air style; practicing painting in the open space in order to capture the transient effect of light, Sisley continued to concentrate on landscapes. In 1866, 68 and 70 his work was exhibited at the Salon. The painter drew upon the soft tonality of Corot and the dramatic massing of Courbet. As with most of his contemporaries, Sisley was criticized for his loose, unfinished execution. Naturally different, he did not promote himself in the way that some of his fellow Impressionists did, and it was only towards the end of his life, when he was dying of cancer of the throat, that he received something approaching the recognition he deserved.