Albert Houthuesen

Who was Albert Houthuesen?

Albert Houthuesen was a Dutch-born British artist.

Houthuesen was born in Amsterdam; his father was Jean Charles Pierre Houthuesen, a painter and musician. In 1912, following the death of his father, he came to London; he became naturalized 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. From 1928 to 1936 he taught art classes at The Working Men's College with colleagues Percy Horton and Barnett Freedman, under the Directorship of James Laver

During the Second World War he worked as a draughtsman at Doncaster. After the War he taught at St Gabriel's College, Camberwell, and collected artworks that became the College collection. St Gabriel's Art Department was run by the painter Catherine Dean, who Houthuesen had married in 1931. Each year during the 1930s Houthuesen and Dean visited Trelogan, Dean's family home, where Houthuesen painted monumental portraits of colliers.