A Dish of Figs; Crystal Splendour; The Blue Vase; Still Life with Lobster
A DISH OF FIGS, Signed, Oil on board, 61 x 50.8cm., 24 x 20in.
CRYSTAL SPLENDOUR, Signed and dated 2010, Oil on board, 61 x 50.8cm., 24 x 20in.
THE BLUE VASE, Signed and dated 1997, Oil on board, 35.6 x 27.9cm., 14 x 11in.
STILL LIFE WITH LOBSTER, Dated 1993, Oil on panel, 74.9 x 91.4cm., 29½ x 36in.
From 1963, Willem Leo Jan Dolphyn created around 2,500 paintings. His collection of antique items, including furniture, fabrics, glassware and ceramics filled the rooms of his studio. He often used his treasures to create his incredible compositions, dreaming up ideas with Roman glass, fine China, Delft tiles, Flemish tapestry and fruit.
Willem was born in Antwerp on 17 May 1935 to Victor Dolphyn and Anna de Ridder. Victor Dolphyn was a talented artist and taught at the Academy in Antwerp from 1941. Willem began drawing at the age of 4, inspired by a group of swans at the Antwerp Zoo. At the age of 15 he signed up as an ordinary seaman, giving him the chance to explore other countries and experience Eastern culture and the Orient, an interest his grandfather started in him and which grew into one of his life’s major passions.
Dolphyn joined the Antwerp Academy in 1950, and at 17 became the youngest pupil to be admitted to the National Higher Institute for Fine Arts. After spending a couple of years in the army with the 29th Engineering Corps from 1954, he returned to his painting and collecting, and in 1957 one of his first successful shows was exhibiting a collection of miniatures at Nijenrode Castle in the Netherlands.
Dolphyn was able to leave his job at the Mol Academy, where he taught figure drawing and still-life painting from 1964, after commissions flooded in following his sale of forty-two of his landscape and still-life paintings at his show at the Gebo Gallery in 1968.
He bought a small townhouse in Antwerp in 1979, later expanding into the neighbouring properties, his studio housing his extensive collection of swords and armoury. He continued to travel, visiting the Middle and Far East and travelling to North and South America.
During the early eighties Dolphyn met Monique Verschuren who organised an exhibition of his work in Zierikzee in the Netherlands, quickly followed up by an exhibition in The Hague. These exhibitions were sold out and Dolphyn’s international reputation was secured. Monique then took him to London to meet Bill Patterson of W.H.Patterson in Mayfair. ‘The Dolphyn Exhibition’ became widely anticipated, alternating with exhibitions in the Sporting d’hiver, in the Monaco Fine Art Gallery. Willem, his father Victor, Victor’s brother Denis and Willem’s son, Walter, also held family art exhibitions, bringing together a broad range of genres.
A childhood dream of Dolphyn’s was to paint the skyline of Antwerp and starting in 2008, it took him a year and four months to complete. The painting is a masterpiece and only the fourth painting of its size to be painted since the 16th century, measuring around 5 meters long and 1.8 meters high. The painting is on display in the entranceway to the Price Waterhouse Coopers building in Antwerp.
Dolphyn married Yvonne de Rudder in 1961 and their son Walter was born in 1963. Walter grew up and worked alongside his father and they painted together in the same studio. Willem and Yvonne divorced and in the early eighties he met Dennise Hermann who became his constant companion. Willem passed away in January 2016 and his funeral took place in Antwerp Cathedral.
