Pol was born in the Netherlands, the son of notary clerk. He studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and later in Paris.

In the 1930s he lived and worked in Paris, there he met his first wife and the couple moved to the Dutch East Indies. After the Japanese invasion and occupation the couple were separated, Pol interned in one camp, his wife and young daughter, Talitha, in another. They survived the war, but their marriage didn’t. He returned to the Netherlands and his wife and daughter moved to England. Tragically his wife died in 1948 as a result of her treatment in the Japanese camp.

Pol returned to the Dutch East Indies continuing to paint and exhibit commercially. He moved to England in the late 1948, presumably to parent his now motherless daughter. 1952 he met and married ‘Poppet’ John, the daughter of Augustus and Dorelia John. The couple settled in the South of France where they lived out their days. Pol’s daughter Talitha was a celebrated beauty in Swinging 1960s London. Her many famous romantic conquests included Rudolf Nureyev and Lord Lambton. In 1966 she became the second wife of John Paul Getty Jr.