
George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) captured Amsterdam like no other painter. A leading figure in Amsterdam Impressionism, he was born in Rotterdam and showed early drawing talent while working in his father's grain business. At seventeen, he enrolled at The Hague's Royal Academy of Art but was expelled in 1880 for destroying the regulations board. That same year, Willem Maris took him in, and he joined the artist society Pulchri Studio.
In early 1882, Breitner sketched alongside Vincent van Gogh in The Hague's working-class districts. He likely introduced Van Gogh to Émile Zola's novels and social realism. He moved to Amsterdam in 1886, where he spent the rest of his life recording the city in sketches, paintings, and photographs. Breitner saw himself as "le peintre du peuple," the people's painter, preferring working-class models: laborers, servant girls, people from poor neighborhoods.
He painted en plein air and became fascinated with photography as a tool for capturing street life and atmospheric effects, especially rainy weather. By 1890, he owned a camera and produced thousands of photographs, many serving as references for paintings. The Rijksmuseum holds 119 of his sketchbooks. He often collaborated with Isaac Israels; both are called Amsterdam Impressionists. In 1902, Breitner became the first contemporary artist given a retrospective at the artists' association Arti et Amicitiae. Despite success, financial troubles plagued him, leading friends to establish a support committee. He died of a heart attack in 1923 at sixty-five. His work fills the Rijksmuseum and the Amsterdam Museum.
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