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Albert Houthuesen

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Albert Houthuesen
Born
Albertus Antonius Johannes Houthuesen

3 October 1903
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Died20 October 1979(1979-10-20) (aged 76)
London
NationalityDutch and British
EducationSaint Martin's School of Art
Royal College of Art
Known forPainting
SpouseCatherine Dean

Albertus Antonius Johannes Houthuesen (3 October 1903, Amsterdam – 20 October 1979, London), known as Albert Houthuesen (/ælbərt_haʊtjuzən/, AL-bət HOW-tew-zən), 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] 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.[4]

During the Second World War Houthuesen worked in Doncaster as a draughtsman for the London and North Eastern Railway. His painting of Crown of Thorns (1939-1940) and portrait of Flying Officer Herbert Houtheusen [sic] (1943) date from this time. 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.[5][6] His acquisitions included a woodcut of The Ecstasy of Mary Madgalene by Albrecht Dürer, a pencil drawing of Whitehaven on the Cumbrian coast by J. M. W. Turner,[7] a preparatory pencil drawing of three horses' heads for The Frugal Meal by John Frederick Herring Sr.,[8] and an aquatint of Christ by Georges Rouault.[9] After the college closed in 1978, the collection was transferred to an educational trust and subsequently loaned to Goldsmiths, University of London.

Selected paintings

During his career, Houthuesen possibly painted about 2000 works, and although many were acquired by major art galleries and collectors, few have been publicly exhibited.[1]

Published works

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

Reception

In 1976 the BBC broadcast Walk to the Moon – The Story of Albert Houthuesen, a film about Houthuesen's life and work.[10]

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".[11]

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

Further reading

  • John Rothenstein, British Art Since 1900. An Anthology (Phaidon Press, 1962)[page needed]
  • Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, volume 1 (London, Tate Gallery Catalogues, 1964)[page needed]
  • John Rothenstein, Modern English Painters, volume 2 (Macdonald, 1974), ISBN 0356103544[page needed]
  • James Huntington-Whiteley, Albert Houthuesen, 1903–1979: An Artist in Wales: Paintings and Drawings From the 1930s (Penarth, National Museums & Galleries of Wales, 1997)
  • David Buckman, Artists in Britain Since 1945 (Art Dictionaries Ltd., 2006), ISBN 095326095X[page needed]
  • Richard Nathanson, Walk to the Moon - The Story of Albert Houthuesen (The Putney Press, 2008), ISBN 0951621920

References

  1. ^ a b 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. ^ Hedger and Ditcher: Portrait of William Lloyd, National Museum of Wales. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ Catalogue to the St. Gabriel's College collection (Camberwell, 1964).
  7. ^ Turner's drawing of Whitehaven was sold at auction in 2016.
  8. ^ J. F. Herring's drawing for The Frugal Meal was sold at auction in 2014.
  9. ^ Rouault's aquatint of Christ was sold at auction in 2014.
  10. ^ Walk to the Moon – The Story of Albert Houthuesen Archived 29 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, BBC video (1976). Retrieved 13 May 2012.
  11. ^ Souren Melikian, International Herald Tribune, 8 October 2010.
  12. ^ Conrad Duncan (3 November 2021). "Thomas Picton: Cardiff museum takes down portrait of slave owner: Painting of disgraced former governor of Trinidad to be replaced by 'celebratory portrait' of worker". Independent. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
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