Wouter Bernard (Wout) van Heusden (25 September 1896 in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...

– 9 July 1982 in Rotterdam) was a Dutch graphic artist, who also worked as etcher, lithographer, manufacturer of woodcuts, painter, draftsman, and painters.Wout van Heusden; male / Netherlandish; graphic artist, etcher, lithographer, manufacturer of woodcuts, painter, draftsman, painters
at rkd.nl, 2015. Van Heusden attended evening art classes in graphic techniques at the Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten (now

Willem de Kooning Academy The Willem de Kooning Academy ( nl, Willem de Kooning Academie) is a Dutch academy of media, art, design, leisure and education based in Rotterdam. It was named after one of its most famous alumni, Dutch fine artist Willem de Kooning. Overvie ...

) in Rotterdam, and kept living and working in Rotterdam-Zuid. Aside from a few brief trips to Paris and Munich, he barely left his part of the city. Initially he locally made a name as a painter of

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this r ...

s and still lifes. His still lifes often have a surreal character and fits into the magic realism and surrealism. Later, his graphic work prevailed, initially lithographs, and later only

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

. Hereby he developed a unique technique with

aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio (printmaking), intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. ...

, which contrasted with lines, in which a magical, dreamlike atmosphere was recalled. In 1946 Van Heusden and Koos van Vlijmen founded the artist group ''Vrije Beelden'' (Free Images), and among others Piet van Stuivenberg jointed their group. In 1962 Van Heusden was given a major retrospective exhibition at the

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. It is located a ...

, which was followed by other museum exhibitions. Meanwhile, Van Heusden remained studiously out of the spotlight (being called "the Hermit of Tuindorp"), and he participated with colleagues and galleries. At the end of his life he was a little more accessible. His paintings, which he exhibited after 1962 were generally less acclaimed than his etchings, probably because they were significantly different from what was usual. Van Heusden was awarded the Sambre Award in 1959, the Rembrandt Award in 1966, and the

Hendrik Chabot Award The Hendrik Chabot Award (Dutch: ''Hendrik Chabot Prijs'') is an annual award for visual artists presented by the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, section South Holland. The prize ceremony is in the city hall of Rotterdam, where the prize is given by T ...

for his graphics in 1968. The city of

granted him Wolfert Borsele Penning in 1975. His work is present in the MoMA collection.Work in MoMA collection
2015. He had also worked as a photographer; in an edition of the photomagazine "Focus", dated 3 october 1959 he explained in an article he wrote, about how he became a photographer.

References

External links

www.woutvanheusden.nl
1896 births 1982 deaths Painters from Rotterdam Dutch painters Dutch male painters Dutch sculptors Dutch male sculptors Willem de Kooning Academy alumni {{Netherlands-artist-stub