Born in Holland, Balink studied at the Royal Academy in Amsterdam between 1909 and 1914.
He came to the United States in 1914 and spent time in New York and Chicago where he found commission work painting portraits.
In 1917 he was inspired to go West by a poster he saw in a railway terminal. He traveled to Taos and found immediate success in selling his paintings. He moved to Santa Fe in 1923 and in 1927 was commissioned by the Marland Museum in Ponca City to paint portraits of Oklahoma Indian Chiefs.
