SA Art Gallery buys $4.5m Pissarro

A painting by the French Impressionist artist Camille Pissarro has been bought by the Art Gallery of South Australia for $4.5 million.

Prairie a Eragny (1886) is the gallery's most significant acquisition, its director Nick Mitzevich said on Monday.

"This landscape by Pissarro is a quintessential French Impressionist landscape - full of vitality and colour, created by Pissarro's signature dynamic brushwork," he said.

"This acquisition will elevate the national and international standing of the state's collection."

The gallery was able to buy the painting through funds provided by private donors and the James and Diana Ramsay Foundation.

Pissarro was the only artist who took part in all eight Impressionist exhibitions from 1874 to 1886 in Paris.

His paintings are celebrated for the sensation of air, light and transparency they generate through his careful chromatic analysis.

Prairie a Eragny will be unveiled at the gallery on August 22.