Meijer de Haan was a Dutch painter.

Biography

He was born into a successful Jewish family of biscuit manufacturers, close to the study of religion, music and art. He had already had some success in the Netherlands as a painter of Jewish genre works. In Amsterdam de Haan painted portraits and took on several pupils, including Joseph Jacob Isaacson, Louis Hartz

Louis Hartz

Louis Hartz was an American political scientist and influential liberal proponent of the idea of American exceptionalism....

 and Baruch Lopes de Leao Laguna.

In the winter of 1888, accompanied by his pupil Joseph Jacob Isaacson, he went to Paris to continue his studies. There he met Pissarro, Theo van Gogh

Theo van Gogh (art dealer)

Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting...

, and Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...

, back from Arles, whom De Haan accompanied to Brittany - first to Pont-Aven

Pont-Aven School

Pont-Aven School is a term occupied by works of art iconographically due to Pont-Aven and its surroundings. Originally the term was focusing works of the artists' colony emerging there since the 1850s, and some decades later the work of the group of painters gathering around the artist Paul...

, and later to Le Pouldu, on the coast of Brittany.

Van Gogh introduced De Haan to his brother Vincent van Gogh, and Meijer de Haan exchanged several letters with Vincent. In Brittany, De Haan had a liaison with Marie Henry, the owner of the seaside hotel-café Buvette du plage, where de Haan and Gauguin lodged in 1890-1891. They covered the walls of the dining area with impressionist murals, that were only papered over in the 1920s. Since discovery they have been restored and sold.

Marie Henry gave birth to a daughter who was called Ida, but de Haan left Le Pouldu and returned to Amsterdam. There are several stories why he left, and though some say that Gauguin was jealous, it was probably simply due to his parents stopping his stipend, so he could no longer afford staying there. Though he never saw Marie Henry again, he later left all of his paintings to her.

Today, the bar Buvette du plage has been restored to its former appearance, with modern reproductions installed to replace the original wall paintings.

In 2010, the Musée d'Orsay staged an exhibition of de Haan's work, called A Master Revealed: Meijer de Haan.