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, a painter and musician, and his wife Elisabeth Petronella Emma, nee Wedemeyer.
16 Facts About Albert Houthuesen
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Albert 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.
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Albert Houthuesen shared a studio with artists Gerald Ososki, Barnett Freedman and Reginald Brill in Howland Street.
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Thanks to William Rothenstein, principal of the Royal College of Art, Albert 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.
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Rothenstein invited Albert Houthuesen to stay when his deeply unhappy home life prevented him from studying effectively.
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In 1927, at the RCA, Albert Houthuesen met his future wife Catherine Dean.
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Albert Houthuesen stayed on at college as a student demonstrator until the following summer.
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Albert Houthuesen 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.
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Albert Houthuesen taught at the Working Men's College until 1938.
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In spring 1936, Albert Houthuesen suffered an internal hemorrhage due to a duodenal ulcer, from which it took him a long time to recover.
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Albert Houthuesen was rejected from the army on health grounds and worked as a draughtsman for the London and North Eastern Railway at the Doncaster Works.
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Albert Houthuesen made his first clown drawings in 1944, after seeing a family of Russian Jewish clowns, the Hermans, at the Grand Theatre in Doncaster.
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Albert Houthuesen was able to attend ballets at Covent Garden and the Adelphi Theatre, such as Los Caprichos, Petrushka, The Three-Cornered Hat, and Les Sylphides.
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Albert Houthuesen helped to build up the art collection at St Gabriel's College.
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Albert Houthuesen suffered continued ill-health, spending eight weeks in the Gordon Hospital in spring and summer 1961, three weeks in King's College Hospital in early 1965, and suffering a stroke in the 1970s.
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The art critic Souren Melikian has written: "I suspect that Albert Houthuesen will come to be seen as one of the great figures in post-World War II Western art".