Walter Dolphyn Belgian, 1963-2023

Walter Dolphyn was born in Antwerp in 1963, an only son raised within one of the city's notable painting families. His father Willem, his grandfather Victor (a respected painter who taught at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp) and his great-uncle Denis were all painters, each working in his own distinct style. His mother Yvonne was herself a creative presence too, whose poetry was admired by the celebrated Flemish author Willem Elsschot, Walter's great-grandfather. Given such ancestry, Walter was widely expected to take up the brush, yet for a long time there was little sign that he would. He trained and qualified as a printer, a trade he followed for some six years, first with the Antwerp provincial authorities and later at a bank. In the early 1990s a sequence of events changed the course of his life. His father Willem, never one to refuse a challenge, agreed to sing lead vocals on a single by the aptly named house band So What? When one of the musicians asked Walter to design the sleeve, he set aside any thought of a quick sketch and produced a fully worked, minutely detailed painting instead. After the success of the record sleeve, and following some decidedly impulsive deliberation with his wife Inge, Walter left printing behind to paint full time. It proved to be the right decision. His career began strongly, even though he gravitated towards punishingly difficult subjects: dense cityscapes built around crumbling facades, battered doors and broken gates. Conscious of the technical reputation that Willem and Victor had established, he worked with the precision of a surgeon and near-limitless patience, picking out every last detail to considerable effect. Over time his work moved towards trompe l'oeil: cabinets and shelves crammed with objects worn by age and use, and narrative still lifes that almost always featured old toys. Storytelling sat at the centre of his practice. Walter Dolphyn passed away in 2023 at the home he shared with his beloved wife Inge in the south of France. He is greatly missed, yet his paintings live on, as full of wit and mischief as the man who made them.