Wil Fruytier

Wil Frutier was born on 14 January 1915 in Deventer as the eldest child in a Roman Catholic family of 7 children. She was the daughter of manufacturer-merchant Antonius (Anton) Lebuïnus Maria van der Lande (1890–1981) and Elisabeth Maria Antonia van den Bogaert (1892–1971). Anton van der Lande managed, among other things, the Helmond textile company Hatéma in the thirties. At the age of fifteen, Fruytier went to the Catholic girls' boarding school Notre Dame des Anges in Ubbergen for two years. On 9 November 1940 she married the lawyer Pieter Fruytier, son of Leonardus Albertus Fruytier, former governor of Curaçao. From the marriage, dissolved on 21 December 1966, 3 daughters were born. From the early seventies Fruytier had a living-apart relationship with architect Ben Kraaijvanger.

In her younger years, Wil Fruytier drew and painted a lot. In 1957, Fruytier started making patchworks as an autodidact, initially gluing patches in compositions onto a base. In the same year, she was asked to exhibit a patchwork in the Rotterdam Art Circle and this was the start of her career. An assignment to design a tapestry in 1961 brought her into contact with weaving. She started experimenting with weaving different materials, such as rope, cotton and polypropylene.