Adam Pynacker was born in Schiedam between 23 January 1620 and 22 January 1621. His parents were the wine merchant, shipping company owner and city official Christiaen Pynacker (or van Kerckhoven), a native of Delft, and Maria Graswinckel, who came from a prominent Delft family. Since his name is not mentioned in the city's guild books and he is identified in documents as a merchant, it is assumed that painting was only a secondary profession for Adam Pynacker. Yet according to Houbraken he sojourned in Italy for three years to school himself on classical models and practice drawing from nature. Harwood places this journey around 1645 to 1648. From the style of his early works, she assumes a subsequent stay in Utrecht. From 1649 to 1651 Pynacker is mentioned a number of times together with the innkeeper, wine merchant, painter and art dealer Adam Pick in Delft. Only six or seven dated paintings by Pynacker survive; the earliest of these is from 1650. In 1654/55 he was presumably in Lenzen on the Elbe in connection with the commission for a large landscape painting destined for the Brandenburg court (now Berlin, Gemäldegalerie). From 1656 to 1661 he is documented in Schiedam. On 20 September 1658 he married Eva de Geest, the daughter of the Leeuwarden portrait painter Wybrand de Geest (1592-ca. 1661) from the respected Uylenburg family, and converted to Catholicism. The couple's two children were baptised in Schiedam in 1660 and 1661. In 1661/62 he settled in Amsterdam, where he was buried on 28 March 1673. Adam Pynacker painted Italian mountain landscapes and river and harbour views in a manner frequently reminiscent of Jan Both and Jan Asselijn. Characteristic of his personal style, which he developed over the course of the 1650s, are a precise rendering of botanical motifs in the foreground and a distant view, restricted to cool tones, that takes on relief in the light of the rising or setting sun. In his Amsterdam years, beginning in 1661, he more often painted wall-filling compositions up to three metres tall. A number of drawings are also known under his name. Gijsbert Verhoek (1644-1690), Jan Gabrielsz. Sonjé (ca. 1625-1707) and François (Martensz.?) de la Court (active ca. 1670-1680) are named as his pupils. Frederik de Moucheron and Jan Wijnants are considered his best-known followers.
