Ton Lindhout
Tribute to an Artist & Flyfisherman Par Excellence
Where to start?
God, how I miss my (flyfishing)friend… His warmth, sense of humour, wisdom, his “Joie de vivre” and, last but not least, his love for (mainly) Italian food and wine. Ton crossed the river Styx on 11-11-2022 aged 79. Fond memories, photos and art is what there is left. And I don’t have to miss his art, as many walls in our house (including my “man cave”) are decorated with his paintings (see the gallery below) which inspire me when I get up first thing in the morning and when I go to bed. One of his (big) paintings called “Arles” hangs right above our bed. Every morning, when we open the curtains, it literarly lights up and gives our day a special boost. (See picture of the painting in the photo gallery below.) The first time Ton and I met was around 1980 when he visited a fly fishing club (Midden Brabant) I just started together with my friend Cees van Zoelen in Berlicum. I was only 16 years of age myself. Ton must have been in his mid-thirties. Next to his day time job (as an art director) he was running “Fly Fisher’s Supply“, selling quality fly fishing and fly tying materials through a catalogue. His fishing and business pal was Bas Verschoor. To promote their business, and fly fishing & fly tying in general, Ton and Bas travelled through The Netherlands in Ton’s Saab which was stacked to the roof with tackle and tying materials. Fly fishing & fly tying was new and exciting! We became friends and I started visiting him in The Hague where he lived. (To be continued…..!) Here’s what the 1981 Fly Fisher’s Supply catalogue looked like, plus a fun vintage color picture of Bas & Ton together in their waders at the waterside, enjoying a…uhm….cup of coffee.
ATH Design
Only a few years later the well known Dutch engineer and artist Ari ‘t Hart asked me to join the newly started company ATH Design. (More about how that happened later.) That must have been around 1985, if I remember properly. My role was “sales manager Europe” (There was also someone appointed “sales manager US”. He was a nephew of one of the financial backers of ATH Design.) Anyway, one of the first things they asked me to do was to develop a professional catalogue and of course I reached out to Ton for help. In his turn, Ton asked his fly fishing friend Leo Landman to write the text for the new brochure. It was Leo who came up with the idea to use the briliant quote by Oscar Wilde: “I am a man of simple taste, only the best will do.“. I contracted a professional studio to make photo’s of all the ATH reels, like the Traun, Rio Orbigo, Lake Taupo, Deschutes and the S series. And of course the fly tying tools and other products like the reelseats. Well, without being arrogant, I believe that the result was rather special. But all Kudos go to Ton Lindhout!
The catalogue had a square stamped in the middle, showing the photo of a Rio Orbigo reel, and was folded in a special way. it was printed in 3 languages: English, German and French. It was a rather expensive production. Nowadays it is a collectors item. Here are some photo’s of that ATH Design Catalogue. The rod in the background was build by Bert Schouten of Handy Fish. The soft fly pouch with the nymphs on the fly tying vice page was mine. Memories!
Watercolor Sketchbook
I’m also rather happy with owning one of his old watercolor “sketchbooks” dating back to 1991. Here are 2 watercolors which are still in this sketchbook. (Click for larger image) I can just picture Ton sitting on a little chair in France, probably with a glass of wine, taking in the landscape and putting and mixing the water based paint onto the paper sheets.
Ton’s paintings
Below a gallery with a selection of Ton’s paintings I own (or I should say “we”, as my wife has bought a couple herself from Ton) and a few photographs I took of Ton fishing during some of our fishing trips. (Click on the images for a larger format)
These are Ton’s own words about his paintings: “My interest in nature and its landscape, near and far, always inspires me to show the essence of a landscape through paint and canvas. I also want to ask myself what I actually see and what might be doomed to disappear. The exact rendering is not what interests me, I am interested in the layering that is visible in every landscape. It fascinates me to allow abstraction so that everyone can come up with their own “story”.
Looking at Ton’s paintings through the decaded, it is clear that he started to paint more and more in an abstract style. Just like he says in his own words. Enjoy!
