Pixi.js: Load image assets for PIXI.js in conjunction with Webpack

I'm trying to load image assets for PIXI.js in a React project of mine that uses Webpack. Here is my whole 'Menu' component class:

import React from 'react';
import styles from './Menu.css';
import backgroundUrl from './background.jpg';
require('pixi.js')

class Menu extends React.Component {    

    componentDidMount () {

        // Get reference to canvas element
        this.canvas = this.refs.canvas;        

        // Load assets                
        PIXI.loader.add([
            {
                name: 'background',
                url: backgroundUrl
            }
        ]).load(this.init());

    }

    init () {

        // Create background sprite
        const background = new PIXI.Sprite(PIXI.loader.resources.background.texture);

        // DEBUG: Height and width is always '1'
        console.log('Background width: ' + background.width);
        console.log('Background height: ' + background.height);

        // Setup renderer
        this.renderer = PIXI.autoDetectRenderer(background.width, background.height);
        this.renderer.autoResize = true;
        this.renderer.resize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);
        this.canvas.appendChild(this.renderer.view);

        // Create stage
        this.stage = new PIXI.Container();                

        // Add background to stage
        this.stage.addChild(background)

        // Tell the renderer to render the stage
        this.renderer.render(this.stage);

    }

    render () {

        return (
           <div className={styles.canvas} ref='canvas'></div>
        );
    }

}

export default Menu;

Now as you can see, I'm trying to load the image background.jpg into PIXI with the loader.add() function. It just doesn't work. In my debug console logs I can see that the height and width of the image is 1. Also, when I view the URL for the background image, it all seems fine. Any tips?