National Gallery of Art

Biography

Frans Hals was the son of Franchoys Hals, a cloth-worker from Mechelen, and Adriana van Geertenryck of Antwerp. He was probably born in Antwerp in about 1582 or 1583. Sometime after the fall of Antwerp to the Spanish in August 1585, his parents moved the family to the northern Netherlands. Frans' brother, Dirck, was baptized in Haarlem in 1591. Dirck Hals (1591-1656) also became a painter, as apparently did a third brother, Joost (died before 16 October 1626); none of the latter's works have been identified.

In the posthumous second edition of Karel van Mander's Het Schilder-boeck (1618), it is stated that Frans Hals had studied painting with the author (1548-1606); if so, his apprenticeship was probably before 1603, when Van Mander left Haarlem for a country estate outside the city to finish writing his book. This alleged apprenticeship, however, did not appear to have much effect on Hals, whose style bears no obvious resemblance to that of Van Mander, and who rarely depicted the type of subjects that Het Schilder-boeck urged young artists to choose. Nonetheless, it should also be noted that extremely little is known (in 1993) of Hals' activities prior to his late twenties, and it is conceivable that as-yet unearthed or unidentified juvenilia will necessitate a reappraisal of his early career.

Hals is first documented as an artist in 1610, when he entered the Haarlem guild. In June 1615, the artist's wife, Annetje Harmansdr., died, leaving him with two young children, one of whom, Harmen, became a painter. The next year Hals made his only recorded trip outside Holland, traveling to Antwerp, where he stayed from August until November. Then, in 1617, he remarried. His second wife, Lysbeth Reynier, was reprimanded by the city authorities on several occasions for brawling. She bore the artist at least eight children--one baptized nine days after the wedding--amongst them the artists Frans the Younger (1618-1669), Reynier (1627-1671), and Nicolaes (1628-1686). Another artist son named Jan or Johannes (active c. 1635-1650) was also probably a child of this marriage, and a daughter, Adriaentje, married the Haarlem genre and still-life painter Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraten, bringing the total number of artists in the family to about a dozen, if one includes Hals' brothers and nephews.

Although portraiture was always Hals' specialty, he also painted genre scenes and a handful of religious paintings. In his early maturity, from 1616 to 1625, Hals was associated with a Haarlem rederijkerskamer (rhetoricians' chamber), 'De Wijngaertranken.' The appreciation of his painting skills, to which a number of important group portrait commissions testify, was documented as early as 1628, when Samuel Ampzing's general description of the city of Haarlem included a passage praising Hals' ability to capture the spirit of his portrait sitters. Despite this recognition, Hals was continually plagued by financial difficulties. Even during the 1630s, when his services as a portraitist seem to have been in the greatest demand, he is known to have been sued by his butcher, baker, and shoemaker in pursuit of unpaid debts. In 1654, he paid a debt to a baker by surrendering his household goods and several paintings, and from 1662 until his death he received relief from the burgomasters--an initial gift of 50 guilders, plus an annual allowance of 150 guilders per year, increased to 200 guilders in 1663.

Hals died in Haarlem on August 29, 1666, and was buried in Saint Bavo's on September 1. His only documented pupils are his son-in-law Pieter Gerritsz. van Roestraeten (1627-1698) and Vincent Laurensz. van der Vinne (1628-1702). Houbraken (see person bibliography) states that Adriaen Brouwer (1606-1638), Dirck van Delen (1605-1675), Philips Wouwerman (1618-1668), Adriaen van Ostade (q.v.), and his sons also trained in Hals' studio. [This is an edited version of the artist's biography published, or to be published, in the NGA Systematic Catalogue]

Bibliography

1618

Van Mander, Karel. Het Schilder-boek. 2d ed. Amsterdam, 1618: fol. 130.

1628

Ampzing, Samuel. Beschrijvinge ende Lof der Stad Haerlem. Haarlem, 1628: 371.

1648

Schrevelius, T. Harlemias: Of, de eerst stichting der stad Haarlem. Haarlem, 1648: 289.

1753

Houbraken 1753, 1:90-95.

1871

Bode, Wilhelm. "Frans Hals und seine Schule." Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 4 (1871): 1-66.

1907

Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century.... 8 vols., translated from the German edition. London, 1907-1917: 3(1910):1-139.

1921

Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Frans Hals. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1921; 2d ed., Stuttgart, Berlin, and Leipzig, 1923.

1962

Slive, Seymour. Frans Hals: Exhibition on the Occasion of the Centenary of the Municipal Museum at Haarlem, 1862-1962. Exh. cat. Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem, 1962.

1970

Slive, Seymour. Frans Hals. 3 vols. London and New York, 1970-1974.

1972

Grimm, Claus. Frans Hals: Entwicklung, Werkanalyse, Gesamtkatalog. Berlin, 1972.

1974

Jowell, Frances Suzman. "Thoré-Bürger and the Revival of Frans Hal." The Art Bulletin 56, no. 1 (March 1974): 101-117.

1981

Baard, H. P. Frans Hals. New York, 1981.

1988

Middelkoop, Norbert, and Anne van Grevenstein. Frans Hals: Life, Work, Restoration. Amsterdam, 1988.

1989

Slive, Seymour. Frans Hals. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Royal Academy of Arts, London; Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem. London, 1989.

1990

Grimm, Claus. Frans Hals: The Complete Work. Translated by Jürgen Riehle. New York, 1990.

1992

MacLaren, Neil. National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School 1600-1900. Revised and expanded by Christopher Brown. London, 1992: 154-155.

1995

Wheelock, Jr., Arthur K. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 65-66.