Marguerite Hynckes-Zahnartist • painterUtrecht 1897-1978 Laren

The Belgian painter Raoul Hynckes was recognized early on as a great talent in his native country. He followed a traditional education at the Brussels academy and was given a one-man exhibition there before he was twenty. His impressionistic landscapes, harbor and river views, have been highly praised. But the First World War throws a wrench in his artistic career when he is drafted into the army. During the advance of the German army, he fled to the Netherlands, where he lived for the rest of his life. After a short time in The Hague, he settled on Prinseneiland in Amsterdam, where he moved into Kees Maks' studio and soon started exhibiting again. Hynckes regularly travels to Volendam and Schellingwoude and paints striking, smooth 'studies' of the ships on the water and the ports. He also illustrates books, designs posters, costumes and stage sets to earn a living. But the atrocities he had experienced at the front did not leave him. He falls into a serious identity crisis, which would last almost ten years. The search for a new identity and style is extremely slow and difficult. At the age of 31, Hynckes decided to make a radical break with his impressionist past and first destroyed much of his old work. He then literally turns inward and from that time on only focuses on painting extremely detailed still lifes in his studio, in which he strives for technical perfection and which are considered part of the movement of magical realism. Dramatic compositions with skulls, carcasses and dead branches and mysterious light, captured from a high vantage point, were the ingredients for a large dose of transience symbolism. During this time, Hynckes, who, like the magical realists Carel Willink and Pyke Koch, sold successfully, was able to move to Blaricum. Here he lives with his second wife, the painter Marguerite Zahn. With the precise method of painting, her work is closely related to her husband's magical realist still lifes. But her compositions have more colour and lack the deeper symbolic meaning of Hynckes' still lifes.

After the Second World War, Hynckes, together with the magical realist Carel Willink, openly competed with the new art order of that time - CoBrA and abstraction. Although Hynckes' virtuosity was widely complimented and appreciated, it was actually considered out of date. From the 1960s onwards the tide turned and with it renewed recognition for neo-realism. In the meantime, Hynckes had found his way 'out' again. He regularly went outside in the Gooi to create landscapes and village views again - in addition to the still lifes that he continued to paint. Until his death he led an ascetic life; he remained devoted only to his pipe and Belgian chocolates.