Carel Willink

Vocation

Notable

Family

Dutch artist, a neo-realist painter who studied in Berlin from 1920-1923 and began as an abstractionist influenced by the Italian futurists. He later became the leading proponent of magic realism in the Netherlands. His meticulous landscapes and city scenes often evoke a surrealistic sense of isolation and dreams. For Willink the silent watchtowers in his city scenes were the forecasts of an age after the atomic bomb. He had a passionate relationship with Mathilde, the model whom he married. She would dress up in extremely wild and expensive haute couture and he complained that she ruined him with her extravagant lifestyle. When he took a second wife, Mathilde stabbed some of his paintings. Mathilde was murdered or committed suicide on 10/25/1977; the police never found out for sure. Link to Wikipedia biography