Born in Antwerp, Paul Hagemans was the son of the celebrated Belgian landscape painter Maurice Hagemans (1852-1917).
Hagemans received early artistic instruction from his father but at the age of fifteen enrolled at the Academy of Antwerp.
Here he was fortunate enough to be tutored by one of the most important landscape painters of nineteenth century Belgium, Isidore Verheyden as well as receiving classes in figure painting from Herman Richir.