Trivia

His first museum exhibition took place in 1965 in the Drents Museum in Assen.

Matthijs Röling was the son of jurist Bert Röling (founding father of polemology in the Netherlands).

Röling is described as the "figurehead of contemporary figurative painting in the Netherlands.".

His artistic breakthrough came in 1976 with a series of still lifes, which he called cabinets.

In 1983 he made his first big mural in the Nijsinghhuis in Eelde.

Röling was a cousin of artist Marte Röling.

In 2005 he received the Sacha Tanja medal for Dutch Figurative Art.

He educated at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague from 1960 to 1963, and at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam in 1963-1964.

He was awarded 'Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion' in 2011.

In 1994 he received the Amsterdam Award for the Arts.

Along with Wout Muller he stood in Groningen at the cradle of the Northern realism. He made together with Muller in 1987, the mural "The tree of knowledge" in the auditorium of the academy building of the University of Groningen.

The "Dr A. H. Heineken Prize for Art" was given to him in 1994.

He is considered a kindred spirit of the 3rd generation of the Dutch Group of figurative abstraction.

Matthijs Röling was a Dutch painter, active as graphic designer, wall painter, painter, draftsman, lithographer, pen artist, etcher, and academy lecturer.

In 1972 he became a lecturer at the Academie Minerva in Groningen, where he educated Peter Pander, Douwe Elias and Jan van der Kooi. He also lectured at the Classical Academy for fine art in Groningen.