Lodewijk Karel Bruckman was born on August 14, 1903 together with his twin brother Karel Lodewijk. Their father Karel Lodewijk Bruckman, was an oil painter himself, recognized their talent for drawing early on. Both brothers received training from 1916 on at the Royal Academy of Art in their hometown The Hague. After this, Lodewijk gave drawing lessons from 1924 to the late 1940s, while Karel designed sets and costumes.

Lodewijk Bruckman received classical training, partly from Henk Meijer. He gradually introduced less conventional elements. His way of painting was a unique combination of the realism nodding to 17th-century masters and more symbolic, sometimes magical, elements. He saw himself as one of the last magical realists. Art...