Woman on Hands and Knees,

ca. 1875–95

Camille Pissarro often depicted rural folk and their labor. As an anti-capitalist anarchist, he considered them models for honest and sustainable communities, in contrast to the unjust inequality rampant in cities. An avid draftsman, Pissarro made countless sketches attempting to capture, in a few simple lines, the gestures and dress of farmers, fieldhands, and domestic workers. He used these drawings as reference material for making paintings and prints throughout his career. In 1894 he collaborated with his son Lucien, who had trained as a printmaker, to turn some of his drawings into prints, which they published as a portfolio called Les travaux des champs (Work of the fields). Cutting the woodblock in a loose manner, Lucien preserved in his prints much of the spontaneity of his father’s drawings.