Landscape and still life painter
Mathilde van der Does de Willebois was born in Utrecht in 1970.
In the summer of 1989 she moved to Florence on a three-month scholarship from the Italian cultural institute in Amsterdam to study Italian and was introduced to the Cecil Graves studio where she started realist painting in 1990.
At the end1991 the Cecil Graves studio spit up, and Mathilde and six other students followed Daniel Graves to set up his new studio, which would become The Florence Academy of Art, and completed her last year with this academy.
In 1993 Mathilde moved to North Carolina (USA) to study with the oil-and fresco painter Jeffrey Mims.
On returning to Europe she moved to Amsterdam and mainly painted still lives and interiors, inspired by the old Dutch Masters.
In 1995 Mathilde moved back to Italy where she lived near San Donato in Poggio using her direct surroundings as subject matters.
In 2013 Mathilde moved to Suffolk, GB, and now lives in East Bergholt with her 2 children, Caspar and Isabel , in the middle of Constable country, surrounded by extremely picturesque places such as Flatford Mill where Constable painted most of his paintings , and where she feels at home amongst the Friesian cows and the meandering Stour river , and Pin Mill on the River Orwell with its dramatic views of stranded barges when the tide is down.
Besides the joy and never ending inspiration for her landscape paintings she gets from her new surroundings, she set up a one woman's catering business and loves the work she is steadily finding with local people, cooking shoot lunches, private dinners and parties as well as the occasional cookery course in the art of pasta -and gnocchi making, or anything Italian or French.
Mathilde exhibits her work in Holland, in London and Tuscany. She frequently works on commission for clients in Europe and America.
In the summer of 1989 she moved to Florence on a three-month scholarship from the Italian cultural institute in Amsterdam to study Italian and was introduced to the Cecil Graves studio where she started realist painting in 1990.
At the end1991 the Cecil Graves studio spit up, and Mathilde and six other students followed Daniel Graves to set up his new studio, which would become The Florence Academy of Art, and completed her last year with this academy.
In 1993 Mathilde moved to North Carolina (USA) to study with the oil-and fresco painter Jeffrey Mims.
On returning to Europe she moved to Amsterdam and mainly painted still lives and interiors, inspired by the old Dutch Masters.
In 1995 Mathilde moved back to Italy where she lived near San Donato in Poggio using her direct surroundings as subject matters.
In 2013 Mathilde moved to Suffolk, GB, and now lives in East Bergholt with her 2 children, Caspar and Isabel , in the middle of Constable country, surrounded by extremely picturesque places such as Flatford Mill where Constable painted most of his paintings , and where she feels at home amongst the Friesian cows and the meandering Stour river , and Pin Mill on the River Orwell with its dramatic views of stranded barges when the tide is down.
Besides the joy and never ending inspiration for her landscape paintings she gets from her new surroundings, she set up a one woman's catering business and loves the work she is steadily finding with local people, cooking shoot lunches, private dinners and parties as well as the occasional cookery course in the art of pasta -and gnocchi making, or anything Italian or French.
Mathilde exhibits her work in Holland, in London and Tuscany. She frequently works on commission for clients in Europe and America.