Pyke Koch

Pieter Frans Christiaan Koch, better known as Pyke Koch (Beek, July 15, 1901 – Wassenaar, October 27, 1991), was a Dutch artist who painted in a magic realist manner.

Pyke Koch and the painter Carel Willink are considered to be the foremost representatives in the Netherlands of Magic Realism, a style of painting in which the scenes depicted seem realistic yet uncanny or unlikely.

His paintings show many details. Some believe these details contain hidden messages and references to his personal life. The work does contain many references to earlier periods in the history of art. He was very much inspired by painters of the Italian quattrocento, most notably the work of Piero della Francesca.

Pyke Koch was born in Beek, a small village near Nijmegen in the Netherlands. He was the only son of the local doctor; he had three elder sisters. He went to school first in Nijmegen, later to a boarding school in Zeist. There he was given the nickname Pike (as in the fish). The name stuck, even when he moved to Utrecht to study law at the University, although he changed the spelling to 'Pyke'.

Music was an important part of Koch family life. He played the violin and was interested in music from Bach to gipsy music. During his student days he played with a student gypsy band called Tzigane.

In the 1920s he met Charley Toorop who was already a famous painter. He probably became interested in painting through their friendship.

In the summer of 1927 Koch was slow in preparing for his final exams. By the time he was ready his professor had left the city for the summer. This left him with nothing to do and he found some brushes and paint that one of his sisters had given him years before. After he convinced a girl in a bar he was a professional painter, she modeled for him. The result was his first painting, called Dolores Ontbijt or Dolores' Breakfast. This first painting made an impression on the painter Cor Postma who arranged for Koch to be part of several exhibitions in the following years in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Strangely, from the very start his paintings were admired for their technical perfection, even though he had had no formal training. In fact he had had no practical training whatsoever. Koch was fond of his image as a self-taught painter. He did follow classes at the Arthistorical Institute of the University Utrecht where he studied the theories of art and even theories about art practices (the historical use of materials and such) but he never seems to have had lessons in drawing or painting.

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