Benjamin Prins
| Benjamin Prins | |
|---|---|
Benjamin Prins
in his atelier, Amsterdam, 1934 |
|
| Born |
Benjamin Liepman Prins January 20, 1860 Arnhem, Netherlands |
| Died | October 4, 1934 (aged 74) Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Nationality | Dutch, Jewish |
| Education | Professor (1838-1927), Royal Art Academy, Amsterdam; Professor Michel Marie Charles Verlat (1824-1890), Royal Academy, Antwerp; Fernand Cormon (1845-1924), Paris |
| Known for | Painting, Drawing, Portraiture |
| Notable work | Het Oude en Nieuwe Testament (The Old and the New Testament) (1886) |
| Movement | Dutch genre art |
Benjamin Liepman Prins (1860–1934) was a Dutch genre artist.
Benjamin Liepman Prins was born in Arnhem, the Netherlands on January 21, 1860. He was the third of six children from Liepman Philip Prins' first wife, Henrietta Prins-Jacobson (1836–1885). Prins showed an early talent for art and went to study with Professor August Allebé in the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, where his family had recently moved from Arnhem. Prins joined Allebé’s class around the year 1877 and studied with him for five years.
His father, Liepman Philip Prins (1835–1915), worked in the family's carpet business for many years. After he reached middle age, Liepman decided to devote the rest of his life to serious and exhaustive torah study; as part of his investigation he corresponded with many scholars of his generation. These scholarly interests and associations would later have great impact on Benjamin's life. In 1885 Liepman Philip Prins took his family to Frankfurt, where he continued to study and write on a variety of Jewish and general subjects. During a visit with the family there, Benjamin met Rosa Benari, the niece of a famous Jewish painter and sketcher of Jewish holiday scenes, Moritz Oppenheim. Benjamin eventually married Rosa. They had two daughters, Gretha and Molly. His brother-in-law Jacob Eisenmann founded the Eisenmann Synagogue in Antwerp.
Prins' artistic nature found expression not only in his art work but also in the company he kept. His wife, an artist's niece, and his good friend Max Liebermann demonstrate that he had a close circle of family and friends active in his profession. In the late nineteenth century, an artist was not considered a respectable profession. Vivian Prins, grandson of Benjamin Prins' brother Maurits, writes in 1996:
... In those days, the very rectitude of the middle class's attitudes of the Prins family, in a sense made Uncle Ben something of an oddity and almost an outsider. Because he was a most delightful and charming person, I think he was forgiven by the family for being an artist, but unlike the present era, the middle class attitude towards artists and actors in the [19]20's and 30's was that there was something not entirely respectable about these professions. I should like to hasten to assure you that Uncle Ben was entirely respectable and that he had one of the most valuable assets for life -- a wonderful, observant and sharp sense of humor.
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