Ballin came from a well-to-do Jewish family in Copenhagen. Of particular importance to his future were the French lessons he had with
Paul Gauguin's wife, Mette, in
Frederiksberg. Thanks to the works of Gauguin he saw in her apartment, he was able to follow the most important trends in French
Impessionist art. In 1889, he went to Paris where he met Gauguin and his friends who together made up the
Nabis group of artists. At a celebration for Gauguin in March 1891, he met the Dutch painter
Jan Verkade who had a marked influence on the development of his career. The two young artists decided to go to Brittany together, staying at the
Pension Gloanec in
Pont-Aven. Later they joined
Paul Sérusier in
Huelgoat where they came into contact with Georges Rasetti (1889–1957). They also went to
Le Pouldu where they completed a number of
Synthetist landscapes under Sérusier's leadership. Together with
Maxime Maufra and
Charles Filiger, they hoped to embark on a new form of art. Though they were never able to achieve it, it was apparently an early attempt at
abstract painting. ==Style of painting==