An Impressionist landscape painter who was born in Paris to affluent parents and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air (i.e. outdoors) in order to realistically capture the transient effects of sunlight. He deviated into figure painting only rarely and, unlike Renoir and Pissarro, found that Impressionism fulfilled his artistic needs.

While studying art in Paris, he met Frédéric Bazille, Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir, and they often painted together.

Among his important works are a series of paintings of the River Thames, mostly around Hampton Court in 1874, and landscapes depicting places in or near Moret-sur-Loing. The notable paintings of the Seine and its bridges in the former suburbs of Paris are like many of his landscapes, characterised by tranquillity, in pale shades of green, pink, purple, dusty blue and cream. Over the years Sisley's power of expression and colour intensity increased