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Albert Houthuesen

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Albert Houthuesen
Born3 October 1903
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Died20 October 1979
London
NationalityDutch and British
EducationSaint Martin's School of Art, Royal College of Art
Known forPainting
SpouseCatherine Dean

Albert Houthuesen (3 October 1903, Amsterdam – 20 October 1979, London) was a Dutch-born British artist.

Life

Early life and training

Albert Houthuesen was born in Amsterdam. His father, Jean Charles Pierre Houthuesen, was a painter and musician. In 1912, following his father's death, Houthuesen moved to London. He became a British citizen in 1922.

He took art classes at Saint Martin's School of Art while working for a furniture maker and in an architect's office. He attended the Royal College of Art between 1923 and 1927, with contemporaries Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Edward Burra, Ceri Richards and Cecil Collins.[1] Vivian Pitchforth is reported to have seen particular promise in Houthuesen's student work.[2] At the RCA, Houthuesen also met Catherine Dean, whom he would marry in 1931.

1930s and 1940s

From 1928 to 1936 Houthuesen taught art classes at the Working Men's College with colleagues Percy Horton and Barnett Freedman, under the directorship of James Laver.[3][4] Each year during the 1930s Houthuesen and Dean visited Trelogan, near the Point of Ayr colliery in north east Wales, where Houthuesen painted monumental portraits of colliers.[5]

During the Second World War Houthuesen worked as a draughtsman at Doncaster. His Crown of thorns (1939-1940) was first exhibited at the Ashmolean Museum in 1939 and then donated to the Tate by Lady Vera Matthews in 1940.[6] He made his first clown drawings in 1944, after meeting a family of Russian Jewish clowns, the Hermans.

Later life

After the War Houthuesen helped to build up the art collection at St Gabriel's College, a teacher-training college in Camberwell.[7] His acquisitions included a woodcut of The Ecstasy of Mary Madgalene by Albrecht Dürer, a sugar-aquatint of Christ by Georges Rouault, a pencil drawing of Whitehaven on the Cumbrian coast by J. M. W. Turner, and a preparatory pencil drawing of three horses' heads for The Frugal Meal by John Frederick Herring Sr..[8] After the college closed in 1978, the collection was transferred to an educational trust and subsequently loaned to Goldsmiths, University of London.

Reception and style

In 1976 the BBC broadcast Walk to the Moon – The Story of Albert Houthuesen, a film about Houthuesen's his life and work.[9]

The art critic Souren Melikian has written: "I suspect that Houthuesen will come to be seen as one of the great figures in post-World War II Western art".[10]

In 2021 Houthuesen's Hedger and Ditcher: Portrait of William Lloyd (1937)[11] was chosen to replace the portrait of slave owner Sir Thomas Picton in the National Museum Cardiff.[12][13]

Major public collections

Published works

  • Albert Houthuesen and John Rothenstein, Albert Houthuesen: An Appreciation (London, Mercury, 1969), ISBN 0950191906.

Further reading

References

  1. ^ Souren Melikian, "Contemporary Art Works of Often Subtle Beauty", The New York Times, 8 October 2010. Retrieved 13 May 2012.
  2. ^ Helen Binyon, Eric Ravilious: Memoir of an artist (Guildford, 1983), p.32.
  3. ^ Janet Barnes, Percy Horton 1897–1970 (Sheffield City Art Galleries, 1982), p.17, ISBN 0900660856.
  4. ^ "Albert Houthuesen", artist biography, Tate. Retrieved 13 May 2012.
  5. ^ "Houthuesen, Albert (1903 - 1979)", National Museum of Wales. Retrieved 13 May 2012.
  6. ^ Catalogue entry for Crown of thorns (1939-40). A similar painting, entitled Implements of hte Passion, is to be found at Campion Hall, Oxford. Catalogue entry for Implements of the Passion..
  7. ^ Gillian Whaite. "Art and the St Gabriel's Collection". St Gabriel's Programme, Culham Institute. Archived from the original on 12 August 2007. Retrieved 13 May 2012.
  8. ^ Catalogue to the St. Gabriel's College collection (Camberwell, 1964).
  9. ^ Walk to the Moon – The Story of Albert Houthuesen Archived 29 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, BBC video (1976). Retrieved 13 May 2012.
  10. ^ Souren Melikian, International Herald Tribune, 8 October 2010.
  11. ^ Catalogue entry for Hedger and Ditcher: Portrait of William Lloyd
  12. ^ "Statue of slave owner Thomas Picton to be removed from Cardiff City Hall". BBC. 23 July 2020. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  13. ^ Goddard, Emily (24 July 2020). "Sir Thomas Picton: statue of 'sadistic slave owner' to be removed in Cardiff". The Independent. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
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