Isaac Israëls was born to a Jewish family in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1865, the son of Jozef Israëls, one of the leading members of the Hague School of painters. Israëls lived for a time in Paris, where he exhibited widely before moving to London in 1913, where he remained for a year. His artworks in oil and watercolour made him a key figure within Dutch Impressionism, with an international reputation, and his work featured in the groundbreaking 'Exhibition of Jewish Art and Antiquities' held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 1906.
Painter Isaac Israëls was born on 3 February 1865 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, the son of Jozef Israëls, one of the leading members of the group of Dutch landscape painters known as the Hague School, and his wife Aleida Schaap. The younger Israëls showed an artistic talent from a young age and, aged thirteen, he entered the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, where he met and befriended fellow artist George Hendrik Breitner who would remain a lifelong friend and artistic influence. Thanks to his father’s success as a painter and the circles in which he operated, Israëls’ childhood was spent in a lively environment of writers, artists, dealers, and collectors, particularly the artists of the Hague School. He often accompanied his father to the seaside resort of Scheveningen, where guests also included renowned European painters, Edouard Manet and Max Lieberman.
In 1878 he accompanied his father to the Salon des Artistes Français, known as the Paris Salon, beginning an annual tradition. He exhibited his first work at the Salon, Military Burial, in 1882. His 1885 exhibit, Transport of Colonial Soldiers, received an honourable mention. In 1881, just 16 years old, he sold a painting, titled Bugle Practice, to the art collector Hendrik Willem Mesdag before it was even finished, indicating his skill at a young age. In this period his works were heavily influenced by the military life and manoeuvres that he witnessed around him. Following the example of Van Gogh, in 1885 he spent a year travelling through Belgian mining districts, witnessing labouring men and women, and cementing his commitment to painting ordinary life. In 1886, Israëls and Breitner moved to Amsterdam to enrol at the Royal Academy of Visual Art, soon abandoning their courses to join the Tachtigers, a group of avant-garde Dutch writers, artists and radicals, who argued that the style must match the content of an artwork, influenced by Naturalist artists and writers. In response to these ideas, Israëls began to paint the daily life of working people in Amsterdam, including the streets, cafes, and cabarets he frequented. He exhibited little in this period but experimented widely in sketches, oils, pastels, and watercolours. At the turn of the 20th century Israëls was employed as a painter for the fashion house Hirsch and it was here that he experienced the disparity in class between the wealthy buyers, shop girls and working class seamstresses which would become another theme in his work. Israëls travelled widely, visiting Spain and North Africa with his father in 1893, after the death of his mother. Having visiting Paris annually from the 1880s, in 1904 he immigrated to the French capital, moving in social circles that included fellow Dutch émigrés and the Fauvist painters. In 1906 his artwork featured in the groundbreaking exhibition, Jewish Art and Antiquities, held at London's Whitechapel Art Gallery.
After nine years in Paris, he moved to London in 1913, where he remained for a year. His artworks of this time depicted snapshots of Edwardian London life, such as horse racing in Hyde Park’s Rotten Row, portraits of boxers and ballet dancers and scenes of London’s busy streets. However, the outbreak of the First World War saw him return to the Hague, before settling in Amsterdam in 1915. At this time he worked primarily as a portraitist, including painting the infamous Margaretha Gertrud Zelle, known as Mata Hari (Kröller-Müller Museum). After the war he continued to travel, visiting Copenhagen, Stockholm and London before embarking on a tour of the Dutch East Indies in 1921, visiting parts of India, Bali and Java.
Upon his return he settled in The Hague, while regularly traveling between the Netherlands and London, as well as Italy and the French Riviera. He received a knighthood in 1925 and in 1928, aged 63, he won the gold medal for his painting The Red Rider at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. In the 1930s he turned to producing lithographs. On 4 October 1934 he attended an exhibition of his drawings and was tragically hit by a car near his home. Isaac Israëls died three days later in The Hague, Netherlands on 7 October 1934. His works are included in numerous UK public collections, including the Ashmolean, British Museum, Dundee Art Galleries, National Portrait Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum; and in the Netherlands, including the Rijksmuseum, Groninger Museum and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
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Publications related to [Isaac Israëls] in the Ben Uri Library