Albertus Antonius Johannes Houthuesen (; 3 October 1903 – 20 October 1979), known as Albert Houthuesen ( ), was a Dutch-born British artist. Life Early life and training Albert Houthuesen was born in the Oude Pijp neighbourhood of Amsterdam, at 263 Albert Cuypstraat, the eldest of the four children of Jean Charles Pierre Houthuesen (1877–1911), a painter and musician, and his wife Elisabeth Petronella Emma, née Wedemeyer (1873–1966). After Jean Charles Pierre's early death, when Albert was 8 years old, the family moved near Elisabeth's mother in London, and Elisabeth opened a boarding house at 20 Constantine Road, near Hampstead Heath. Houthuesen left school aged 14 and went to work for a grocer, then as a lens fitter, apprentice engraver, tailor's stencil cutter, and furniture restorer. At the same time, he began attending evening classes at Saint Martin's School of Art. He shared a studio with artists Gerald Ososki, Barnett Freedman and Reginald Brill in Howland Street (Fitzrovia). Though he loved watching Charlie Chaplin, he preferred theatre to film, particularly enjoying performances by the comedians George Robey and Little Tich. In 1921, he made the first of three trips to Holland, spending time with an uncle, the painter and potter Bernard Boeziek. He became a British citizen in 1922. In 1923–1924, he was designing lettering for the architectural sculpture firm Aumonier. Thanks to William Rothenstein, principal of the Royal College of Art, Houthuesen was eventually able to obtain a scholarship to attend the RCA between 1924 and 1927, with contemporaries Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Edward Burra, Ceri Richards and Cecil Collins. Rothenstein invited Houthuesen to stay when his deeply unhappy home life prevented him from studying effectively. Vivian Pitchforth is reported to have seen particular promise in Houthuesen's student work. Teaching and painting In 1927, at the RCA, Houthuesen also met his future wife Catherine Dean. He stayed on at college as a student demonstrator until the following summer. He then gave evening art classes at the Mary Ward Settlement and the Working Men's College with colleagues Percy Horton and Barnett Freedman, under the directorship of James Laver. He taught at the Working Men's College until 1938. In 1929, he undertook his first commission for Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford, making copies of enamel miniature portraits. Albert Houthuesen married Catherine Dean in 1931. They lived in a flat at 20 Abbey Gardens in St John's Wood. Throughout the 1930s