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Isaac Rosenberg was born to a working-class, Jewish, immigrant family in 1890. After moving from Russia, the Rosenbergs eventually settled in London There, Isaac attended elementary school until he was fourteen. Because his family was too poor to afford Oxford or Cambridge, Isaac became an apprentice at a firm of art publishers and studied at the School of Birkbeck College, London University. After his apprenticeship was over, three Jewish women provided for him to study at the Slade School of Art in order to pursue his passion for painting. In addition to studying art, Isaac developed his poetry writing. Despite his training, neither painting nor writing earned him any great monetary reward.
Isaac Rosenberg went to South Africa for health reasons in 1914. However, he was unable to make a career as a portrait artist as he had hoped. For financial reasons, Rosenberg returned to England in 1915 and joined the Bantam Batallion of the 12th Suffolk Regiment, 40th division.
Rosenberg continually expressed his detestation for the war in his letters and poems. He doubted his talent as a writer and painter. He hoped to use his "strange and extraordinary new" experiences in the war to refine into poetry after the war. Unfortunately, Rosenberg did not live to see the end of the war. He was killed at dawn on April 1, 1918 while on night patrol.
