'The Large Oak' shows Pissarro's lifelong devotion to the English countryside, rendered with broken brushwork and shimmering colour. By 1940, his style had settled into a lyrical fusion of impressionist light and Post-Impressionist structure. Works like this stand as a testament to Pissarro's importance as both a painter and a transmitter of French modernism in Britain.

Lucien Pissarro, the eldest son of Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, played a central role in bringing French Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism into British art. Settling in London in the 1890s, he became a founder member of the Camden Town Group and the London Group, bridging French Modernism with the development of early 20th century British painting.

Pissarro was born on 20 February 1863 in Paris. The eldest of seven children; the son of Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro and his wife Julie (née Vellay). he studied with his father and, like his siblings Georges and Félix, he spent his formative years surrounded by his father's fellow artists such as Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir who frequented the Pissarro home. He was influenced by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac.

In 1886, he exhibited at the last of the Impressionist exhibitions. From 1886 to 1894 he exhibited with the Salon des Independents.

He first visited Britain in 1870-1 during the Franco-Prussian War. He returned in 1883–4, and in 1890 settled permanently in London. On 10 August 1892, he married Esther Levi Bensusan in Richmond. Whilst renting a cottage at Epping, Essex on 8 October 1893, their daughter and only child Orovida Camille Pissarro was born. Orovida also became an artist. He met Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon and contributed woodcuts to their Dial. In 1894 he founded the Eragny Press and with his wife and illustrated and printed books until the press was closed in 1914. In 1897, the family moved to 62 Bath Road in Stamford Brook, Chiswick. In 1903, he designed the typeface Brook Type.

Pissarro associated with Walter Sickert in Fitzroy Street, and in 1906 became a member of the New English Art Club. From 1913 to 1919, he painted landscapes of Dorset, Westmorland, Devon, Essex, Surrey and Sussex.

In 1916, Pissarro became a British citizen. While in Britain, he was one of the founders of the Camden Town Group of artists. In 1919, he formed the Monarro Group with J. B. Manson as the London Secretary and Théo van Rysselberghe as the Paris secretary, aiming to show artists inspired by Impressionist painters, Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro. The group ceased three years later.

From 1922 to 1937, he painted regularly in the south of France, interspersed with painting expeditions to Derbyshire, south Wales and Essex. From 1934 to 1944 he exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. He died on 10 July 1944 in Hewood, Dorset.