Painter. He received acclaim as a 19th century, French-born painter and one of the founding member of the French Impressionism. He was known for his silvery-colored subdued French landscapes and his British seascapes. The only child of four to be born in Paris, his wealthy British parents, William Sisley and his wife Felicia Sell, planned a career for him in business. His parents sent him to England to study, but he spent most of his time at the National Gallery studying paintings. After returning to France, he painted in the open air instead of a studio. While still an amateur in the studio of Charles Gleyre in 1862, he became a colleagues to other artists such as Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir and Frédéric Bazille. Although his most colleagues had little income as they studied, he was financially comfortable with his allowance from his father. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 bankrupted his family, he escaped to London, thus making painting his full-time career. His earliest paintings were lost in the war. He did twenty paintings of the city along the Thames before returning to Paris. Some of his best work was done from 1872 to 1880 in the surrounding neighborhoods of Paris. He did take another trip to England in 1881. Preferring compositions of nature scenes done with feathery brushstrokes , he rarely painted a human form. When he did, he painted them as a hazy form in the distance, Sisley used not only his wife as a model but many of his other family members. In 1868, he showcased his first landscape painting, "Avenue of Chestnut Trees" at an art exhibition that took place at the prestigious Salon gallery in Paris. Often well-known galleries refused to display his pieces, but Sisley did exhibited six of his paintings at the first Impressionist show in 1874 and later the second and third show. Most of his life he fought poverty, yet shortly after his death, his talent was recognized, thus the price of his pieces rose sharply. Although he had applied for French citizenship twice, he was refused both times remaining a British subject his entire life. He died of throat cancer a few months after his wife's death. In 1868 his portrait was painted by his close friend Renoir. Renoir also painted him embracing his wife, who was dressed in a bright-colored red and yellow gown. He shares a flat grave marker with his wife. Although many of his earliest pieces have been lost, he was a prolific painter producing over 900 oil paintings, 100 pastels and a host of other drawings. Sisley placed his initials in the center of his paintings in the natural surroundings such as the bark of a tree or flow of water. His best known and highly acclaimed works include, " The Bridge at Moret-sur-Loing," "The Lane of Poplars at Moret," "Street in Moret'" and "Sand Heaps" among many others.