ALBERT HOUTHUESEN
1903 - 1979
Seascapes
16th – 19th February 2012
The Royal College of Art
[Opposite The Albert Hall]
Arranged by Richard Nathanson
Impressionist & 20th Century Art
Representative for The Albert Houthuesen Estate
P.O. Box 515, London SW15 2WB U.K.
Tel: 00 44 (0)208 788 2718
Website: www.richardnathanson.co.uk
All works come directly from the Artist’s Estate.
Measurements are in inches.
The price stated beneath each picture is in sterling.
The Artist's words accompanying each painting are quoted from his biography Walk to the Moon by Richard Nathanson.
1. White Sun over Rocky Shore 1975, acrylic 10 x 12 £750
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. They are all conscious of these intense affinities in Nature. In everything. Everywhere.
2. November Sun 1968, oil 5 x 7 £680
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.
3. Orange Sky c 1974, acrylic 10 x 7 £700
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 become 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.
4. Shore, Rocks, Waves Coming In 1971, acrylic 10 x 14 £750
I’ve seen some very remarkable ballets and I’ve been moved to tears through steps that I’ve watched because they have, for me, so vividly portrayed the emotions one has experienced oneself. At the time one thinks only of the dancer and the movement. Afterwards it may look like a wave going over a rock. But at the time, one doesn’t have that complicated sort of thinking.
5. Gateway, Autumn 1973. acrylic 8 x 10 £700
Each painting has its own colour scheme and I like to work within that particular set of three or four or five colours. I take three or four colours and then multiply them and make my harmony. Every picture, one hopes, lives in its own world, its own mood; and one doesn’t let the moods mix.
6. White sky, Blue Rocks c.1966, oil 4.25 x 8.75 £680
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.
7. Sunset Over Ruskin Park, Winter c. 1968, oil, 10 x 7 £700
Just think of being able to sit in this little garden and over there is Ruskin Park. I can still walk through London an absolute stranger. For me, travel is a time-waster, but since I can’t do it, I suppose I put up this defence. However I would far prefer to really know my own back-garden than make a quick tour of Italy – to really get to know this mulberry tree which I look at everyday and still don’t begin to understand.
8. Seascape Late Afternoon, c. 1968, oil, 10 x 7 £700
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.
9. Eastern Rocky Shore 1974, acrylic 10 x 12 £850
For me the sun is a symbol of life and hope. The power and beauty of it inspires me absolutely. Yet to be in it withers me and I have to be in the shade. Like the sea it terrifies me.
10. Surf against Blue Rock 1974, unsigned 10 x 14 £720
The subject is like a mysterious ghost, a chimera, which disappears. It haunts you. You try to catch it and always you are eluded. I can stand by the fountains in Trafalgar Square and be absolutely renewed by listening to them and looking at them in the mist. Anyway the psychologists and physiatrists will have a lot to say about my longings and my vast frustrations, the symbol of the sea and the mist.
11. White Surf, Orange Sea c. 1972, acrylic 16 x 20 £1280
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.
12. Stormy Sea, Jagged Rocks c. 1973, acrylic 20 x 24 £1500
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.
13. Red Sunset 1970, oil 16 x 20 £1380
One makes a painting not with the number of colours but with the preparation and preponderance of one colour upon another. The moment you begin – if you can begin – you have only to take the tubes out of their covers and put the colours on the palette; and that in itself is so exciting. They are so rich. And the disaster is when, with all your longing to paint a rich picture with these staggering colours, you see them becoming greyer and greyer, which is oneself.
14. Seascape, Moonlight 1968, acrylic 14 x 18 £1340
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.
15. Yellow Horizon c. 1967, oil 16 x 20 £1350
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.
16. Orange Moon c. 1975, acrylic 16 x 20 £1250
Going to the moon, 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.
17. Green Breaker 1968, acrylic 20 x 18 £1700
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. It’s 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.
18. Storm, Moonlight c. 1968, oil 16 x 20 £1450
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.
19. Blazing Sunset c. 1975, acrylic 16 x 20 £1250
Never in my life have I thought of being original. I have only looked at the sea and the land and the sky. I have looked at the marvellous men and women one sees. And I have gone to the theatre. It is such an astounding world to look at. Everything in Nature is admirable, everywhere and all the time. And all I have wanted to do is to try and paint what I had seen, either in a dream or in reality.
What an intriguing, complicated figure Houthuesen is. I was particularly taken by the expressive power of his landscapes. They seem to me to be his most formally audacious and daring inventions, imbued with a remarkable colour sense.
Chris Riopelle, Curator of Post 1800 Paintings, National Gallery, London.
I suspect that Houthuesen will come to be seen as one of the great figures in post-World War II Western Art. This will be facilitated by the new mood that is perceptible in the art world. The current emphasis on pranks, from Damien Hirst to Jeff Koons to Murakami, may not last forever.
Souren Melikian, International Herald Tribune.
To view a retrospective showing of Houthuesen's work
and BBC documentary on his life.
and