Through his art, my father, Koenraad van Linden Tol, who has died aged 81, shared wondrous visions with the world. His pioneering work with fibreglass and liquid crystal paint in the early 1970s was featured on the television programme Horizon. His intuition and respect for materials allowed him to flow with them, revealing the inner magic of wood, metal or glass. His work could be bold, with graphic and vibrant colour, or sensual with curves and twists, sensitivity discovered through the use of chisels and chainsaws.
The son of Alexandra (nee Bühlman) and Cornelis van Linden Tol, Koenraad was born in Salatiga, Java, in what was then the Dutch East Indies and is now Indonesia, where his father was manager of a tea plantation. After the Japanese invasion in 1942, Koen was sent to live with his grandparents in the Swiss mountains until he could be reunited in 1946 with his parents in the Netherlands. There his mother looked after behaviourally challenged children and his father was a manager at Tata steelworks near Amsterdam. Koen was soon joined by three siblings, Paul, Kees and Alexli.
He was a peaceful man but he was required to complete compulsory service in 1961-62 with the Dutch Medical Corps. He was stationed in New Guinea, a Dutch territory claimed by Indonesia, and received the New-Guinea Remembrance Cross for his service. Back in Amsterdam, he married Dorrit Asselbergs in 1965, and they had twin sons, Joris and Floris. He studied sculpture and painting at the Willem De Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, qualifying in 1966.
In 1977, having divorced, he settled in Conanagh, West Cork, with his partner, Anne Sheridan, and had two daughters, Sonja and me. Although he continued to work as a sculptor and painter, he also did stints as an Atlantic fisherman. The partnership ended in 1984, and Koenraad met Jacqueline Fisher, a US graphic designer and social worker, whom he married in 1987.
They both worked as sailors, and social workers, on the New Way, a magnificent Dutch schooner owned by Vision Quest, a rehabilitation programme for inmates from US juvenile detention centres. The organisation taught not only the skill of sailing but also used Native American philosophy to teach the inmates how to heal and change, return to nature and spirit, and overcome ingrained cycles of crime.
Eventually Koen and Jackie settled in Easton, Pennsylvania, where Koen created stunning sculptures in wood, glass and mosaic. He was a big, strong, free, creative, crazy man, who listened to nature. He loved and danced with all his heart and had wild and wonderful times with those he loved. He inspired all he knew to live life to the full and infected them with his wonderful sparkling mischief.
Jackie died of cancer in 1998, and after an abdominal aortic aneurysm in 2008, Koen decided he wanted to be closer to his children, and joined us in London.
He is survived by his children, four grandchildren Misha, Stephan, Toren and Lef, and his siblings.
