Biography of Joseph Jacob Isaacson

Joseph Jacob Isaacson (the Hague, 20 april 1859 — Auschwitz, 15 december 1942) was a Dutch painter and photographer. Isaacson was a son of the merchant Joseph Jacob Isaacson and Flora Lambert. He was educated at the Academy of art in the Hague, the Polytechnic school in Delft and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. One of his teachers was Macdonald Isaac de Haan. In 1888 he left together with Netherlands De Haan. They left for Paris where they met with the then virtually unknown Vincent van Gogh. Isaacson was the first one in 1889 a favorable criticism about Van Gogh wrote. Later ended his love for the work of van Gogh. Isaacson was a painter, photographer and artist. He made portraits and painted Old Testament scenes. Isaacson himself made several trips to the Middle East. He worked some periods in Egypt. He married on 8 december 1904 in Amsterdam with the ten years younger Emmerentine Weill, sister of the harpist Anna Weill. Isaacson and his wife were murdered by the Germans in Auschwitz.