ALBERT HOUTHUESEN
1903 - 1979
Exhibited Works
From the Artist’s Estate
Richard Nathanson
Impressionist & 20th Century Art
Exclusive Representative for The Albert Houthuesen Trust
P.O. Box 515, London SW15 2WB. U.K.
Tel: 00 44 (0)208 788 2718
Fax: 00 44 (0)208 785 6345
The conversations, quoted below, between the artist and
Richard Nathanson
will be published in Walk to the Moon, his forthcoming
revised biography on Albert Houthuesen.
Apple 1917 oil 4¼ x 3¾ ins
‘The first paintings I made were on cigar-box lids; and the theme, I suppose, was one of loneliness. They were of monks brooding over skulls and crucifixes in dimly-lit cells – romantic childish notions of men who thought. There were several of them and like many other things, they simply disappeared.
I was baptised in a Catholic church and I think that this early training and the early Christian ideas helped inspire these pictures. I attended the Priory Church in Hampstead; and for a brief moment I joined the choir and imagined that I was an angel. I did not sing like an angel and I was often very late. Mama quite literally believed that if I didn’t go to the church to absolve the sins of all of us, we should be damned into hell.
I was given the oil paints by the art master at Fleet Road School. The cigar-boxes were my father’s. And I broke up these mementos of Papa because I had nothing else to paint on. The first survival is this one apple on a black background. I remember thinking as I painted it that if the light was like that and there was another apple behind and another behind that, then the particular intensity of that light would gradually diminish and diminish. And to me, at that time, this was a very exciting discovery. To me now, this little painting is the product of a time that had to be secret and to oneself.
Nobody in the house made any comment. And if I took the apple up to the room where I painted it, it only meant that at that moment a boarder was away; and this tiny room was vacated and I worked on it by candlelight at night. Had I been in happier circumstances, I don’t think this painting would have been as introverted and secret a thing as it is.’
Watering Can, Glove, Scythe 1938 oil 25 x 30 ins
This still-life is full of the foreboding of war. The scythe and ‘lifeless’ glove symbolise death. The severed blossom, still in blossom, clings to hope and life.
‘One had to work in every sort of place. And the first studio I ever had was at 37b Greville Road in St John’s Wood. I was beginning to get over an ulcer and I cannot tell you how happy one was to have this place. I thought ‘Now we are here in this marvellous studio – this big room with a whacking window – I shall paint a large symbolic figure’, something over life-size. This figure, rather ominously, was going to be of ‘Winter’. But I envisaged not a grey picture but quite a colourful thing. The figure was going to be holding a holly branch; and I was going to have red in it, symbolic poppies and so on. Kate was posing when I drew this during the first sitting. Of course already one was very worried about the whole situation. It was foolhardy, in a sense, to start an enormous thing like that or hope to carry on because one’s foreboding was of war. Yet I thought ‘well this is what life is and one must try and go on’. I drew it out on a canvas. But the sirens went and the bombs began to fall.’
Christ Mocked 1939 monotype with ink 15 ¾ x 11 7/8 ins
‘It is difficult to describe how sad one felt. One saw that the world couldn’t possibly be the same and indeed it isn’t. Very few people have any religion. And I can understand how it has gone. I had, even up to the last moment, hoped and prayed that there would come a point where he would stop these advances. One was appalled at the blackguards and the knowledge that the Hitlers and Company were simply criminal adventurers in power.
The Magdalene’s ointment in an old tin jar*. The blindfold and the cloth with which the feet were wiped. I imagined that large piece of cloth as part of the winding sheet around the body. The picture is really black and white isn’t it? It is difficult for me to talk about because I don’t want to talk about suffering. But if you think that this was painted at the outbreak of that ghastly bloody war; and that one saw what was coming and also knew that one’s life would be completely changed, then that’s what this is about.’
* This refers to ‘The Crown of Thorns’ [Tate Britain] painted in the same spirit of despair as the drawing above. Albert and Catherine spend the summer of 1939 in a friend’s cottage in Letwell, near Doncaster. The day the war is declared, the friend found Albert distraught, pacing the garden and saying ‘This is the end, civilisation is finished.’
Spanish Dancer 1949 conté, charcoal 17¾ x 11¾ ins
‘I was avid to go to the theatre. The two ballet companies which really interested me were Covent Garden and the Ballet of the Champs-Elysées at the Adelphi. At that time I went more to the Adelphi. It was small and more intimate and the company was small and very exciting. The ballets were various, very charming and full of life. They all fell under certain headings – they have to, like paintings. They were about falling in love or being rejected or dying or a festival. For me, they gave a general impression of what life is about with the rather Spanish accent governing the idea.
I happened sometimes to use a black ink medium because for me it was an expressive one and I suppose, if one stops to think about it, with the Spaniards, although there is a great deal of richness of colour, there is also great blackness. Again and again with these particular Spanish ballets – the girl and the ‘Duena’ and so on – there are figures in black. The Spaniards are terribly serious. It’s a life and death struggle. And many of these ballets are just that. The Spaniards are like that themselves, terrific realists like the Hollanders. So perhaps there is something in it that I understood. Some chord.
The little Spanish Ballet had this deep traditional idea rather than some lightweight amusing thing which filled in ten minutes. And since the artists were good – and I must underline that because it wouldn’t otherwise have come home so forcibly – I saw acted things that I had myself experienced in a very different way.’
Skeleton Smoking Pipe 1962 conté crayon 9¾ x 6½ ins
‘I think that anyone who clowns a great deal is the very one who, in another sense, thinks in a very serious way. It is a comment on despair. And you can see it with a Marcel Marceau or a Buziau. But for this the world would go completely mad.
I’ve made drawings of clowns and I’ve only scratched the surface. I would love to paint some large canvasses of these clowns – much richer than anything I’ve managed to say. One must paint as Marcel Marceau mimes. And I hope I can live to pay, in one’s way, a tribute. Marceau is remarkable. People are beginning to criticize him and it’s superficial criticism. They think he’s done it all before and so on. But that’s nonsense. He is trying to perfect what he is doing. And, as far as I’m concerned, he can go on doing these things and making them more perfect and more eloquent. That is what matters.
The critic seems to me to forget, in one sense, that somewhere at this very moment, there is a young man or woman who may one day grow into a great composer. A great musician is somewhere listening to Beethoven or Brahms or Purcell for the first time. And if that hearing or seeing moves them, then it cannot be a dead thing. The other person who has seen certain things and thinks that he has understood them perhaps becomes blasé. And seen from that point of view, the thing is criticised. But I don’t feel this about Marceau. I’ve seen other mimes climbing steps and stepping over walls. But how Marceau does it. That is him. And that’s what matters.’
White Sky, Blue Rocks c.1963 oil 4 3/8 x 8¾ ins
‘It is an absolute fact that not until we were in this house was I able to come to terms with the terrible reality of my father’s death. And one afternoon I began to tell Kate about it, for the first time. Here was the first real peace we had known. And if one can give a reason for the seascapes then it is probably because of this.
I cannot tell you what a paradise it is for us to be here, in this quiet place with a roof over our heads, knowing that we are not going to be chucked out. I look at the sky and the vast clouds became a seascape. I put my colours out and the moment I have annihilated this frightening white of the canvas, I’m lost in it again. I struggle through the surf and I’m battered against the rocks. And there it is.’
Rocks and Sea, N Wales 1963 oil 12¼ x 19½ ins
This was inspired by the memory of North Wales during the thirties.
‘Trelogan became our honeymoon place. It wasn’t just a thing of a fortnight or even of one year. It was constant. One’s friends would jokingly say ‘going back to the same place’. And since we had no money, we had nowhere else to go. But it was lovely there. And through going back year after year, we came to know this amazing place with its colliers and farm workers. Its marvellous skies and air full of bees and butterflies. I loved the countryside and I was in love with Vincent. And because one loved Vincent’s work, it was an encouragement to go on.
I would spend hours on the deserted shore looking and looking and looking. One was absolutely fascinated by the constant changing. There was something so fundamental and grand and petrifying. Had I not been to North Wales, I would still have painted some seascapes, but from going back every year, I gained a sense of the marvellous space there. The width and distance of the horizons.’
Reflection, Moonlight c.1965 casein tempera 10 x 13 7/8 ins
‘I used to like going to church. Most of it I didn’t understand but I always had this feeling that there was a great and profound mystery which had tremendous meaning. When you are a child and you read in the Bible of miracles, you wonder very much. Later all that changes and it becomes an amazingly imaginative idea of the world, based on truth, and written by great poets. Man, through this poetry, is trying to express about his life what is so terribly difficult to understand. He stands in mystery and through it he is trying all the time to understand.
Today, for many artists, it’s ‘out’ to be interested in these things. Going to the moon for instance - this incredible thing that has happened in our time - doesn’t make the Bible any less wonderful. If anything, it makes it more marvellous. Just as people now say that the romance has gone out of the moon. I saw it the other night, huge over the roofs. Very low. Very pale. To me it still looks absolutely astounding. Men have walked on it. But the mystery has remained.’
Evening Sun c.1965 casein tempera 10 x 13 7/8 ins
‘When I was by the sea I just looked at the sand and the water, the rocks, the horizon, the skies. When I pick up a small canvas and begin painting the sea, I see the movement of it – the going out and the coming back – it’s erotic. And I see the sky with veils of rain moving across. And I hear the water. It comes as quite a shock when the boy arrives with the groceries.’
Pink Seascape with Rocks c.1966 casein tempera 7 7/8 x 14 ins
‘I do think that if later on my pictures began to have more movement, it was through watching dancers. The more I was able to go to the ballet, the more moved I was by it. And the more I came to realise that the clouds, the sea, poetry and the movement of the dancers were all the same thing.’
Dark Rocks c.1967 oil 16 x 20 ins
‘I first saw the sea as a child in Scheveningen. And in Amsterdam the feel of it was always there. Much later I saw and heard the raging and ravening beasts and dragons that guarded the coast of beloved England with hearts and bones of flint instead of dykes of earth and wood.
The sea has always fascinated and terrified me. If there is anything in the seascapes, then it is because of an attempt to overcome an overwhelming sense of despair. I see the hardship and suffering of human beings in the eternal wrestle of sea, rocks, and land. And I paint the sea again and again eating the world away.’
Winter Landscape c.1967 casein tempera, gouache 10 5/8 x 14 7/8 ins
‘During these last few days, one has been looking through the south windows here at this winter sun. And it has been very, very bright. It is always so much more intense than one manages to make it. Ideas are in one all the time. Sometimes one is uppermost, then a reaction sets in, perhaps because of something that has moved you very deeply. And from that moment you begin to draw and paint on this particular theme.
It is difficult to analyse why one is moved by something. It’s as if an idea grips you by the scruff of the neck and you just have to go on with it. There’s no such thing as inspiration as far as I’m concerned. Only hard work. A man like Constable was absolutely gripped by the trees against the sky. He was born to that, and it was inevitable that he should make these marvellous landscapes. The moment one says ‘Gainsborough’, ‘Rubens’ or ‘George Stubbs’, you have the man and what he is involved with. To me Gainsborough is so staggering. His nature is lyrical but very powerful. People are deluded. He gives the essence and quality of absolute grace but really he is a tough fellow. He has the dance in him and his figures float. It is the character of a man that makes him work at it all day and dream about it at night to a degree that another who is not so completely absorbed does not.’
'November Sun' 1968 oil 5 x 7 ins
‘People say so and so was a seascape or a landscape painter. But if you can draw and paint one thing, you can draw and paint everything. Things are going through one’s head all the time. And obviously one sometimes has a melancholy mood; or a more gay mood or a spring mood. I find that the weather and the day have an effect on me. I look at the sky and I hear the sea.
I think that an artist has to go through the whole spectrum. You can’t say ‘I like blue, I like red’; it sounds fatuous. To me, purple is a melancholy colour and if anything, it is because of one’s memories. You feel something ghastly is just over; and the next day, if you are a writer or a painter, and you are able, you do something about it. You don’t suddenly swing from something sad to something happy. Your work is everything that you experience.’
'Green Breaker' 1968 acrylic 20 x 16 ins
‘Aren’t we past the shortest day? Yes we are. Every day is another couple of minutes’ daylight. It’s marvellous. Spring is on the way, my dear Richard. In a week or so, you will see the trees covered with a haze of green. It is always such a miracle to me. But Nature doesn’t stop and think about this. It is there all the time, growing and growing. You look out of this window, and see very young pigeons who have just fallen out of the nest. And you can’t so much as go by before you see the same birds become rather more aggressive amongst each other. And begin to spread their wings.
It is a wonderful thing when one is in full swing. The brush in your hand takes over and you don’t even know you’re painting. It’s like praying. Gradually I found that I prayed best when I didn’t know I was praying. And I prayed best of all when I was working, because then I didn’t even think about praying. Whilst you are drawing and painting, you really are on your knees. It is an adoration of the miracle of Nature and the very fact that you happen to be alive.’
Elegy to Lost Fisherman 1973 acrylic 28 x 36 ins
‘I think these junks are so beautiful. And I have always thought of them as being something very ancient, very primitive and very frail – ready to be smashed on any rock and every ill that life holds. Yet I have the feeling that they are as eternal as an autumn leaf which curls up and becomes like a thin brown sea-shell and remains so for years and years. I marvel at the journeys these incredibly frail-looking boats make. When men have been such fools as possibly to knock this world to pieces so that there may not even be the metal boats we have, then – if people survive – these wooden boats will come again. To me, they are at once fragile and eternal.’
'Orange Sea' 1974 acrylic 8 x 9¾ ins
‘The world is such an incredible place. And for an enquiring mind, it is so mysterious and wonderful that there is no time to be bored. It enthrals me from the moment I awake. When one says one hopes to make one’s work more cosmic it sounds arrogant, but it is only what painters are trying to do all the time. If you look at Michelangelo’s ceiling or Vincent’s ‘Reaper’, you can see that they are all conscious of these intense affinities in Nature. In everything. Everywhere.’
'White Face in Orange Cone Hat' c.1975 acrylic 12 x 10 ins
‘A person’s development is a very long and mysterious process. Very, very gradually, through wisdom and experience, you become freer. You can’t pinpoint a particular stage of development. You weep more. You laugh more. You are older. And somehow you have changed. I don’t think a painter is anything other than an instrument; and how he does it he cannot really explain. The brush in your hand takes over and you don’t even know you’re painting.
One can only paint anything at all, whatever the subject, through knowing it. And one must love it and be moved more than one can say; and certainly more than I care to talk about. In a sense nothing in art can be explained. And the only talking that is worth talking is drawing and painting. The irony is to be well enough just to live long enough.’
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