This hand-coloured lithograph by Albert Houthuesen represents the clown Michael Herman and was one of several clown portraits that Houthuesen drew at the Doncaster Theatre in 1945 when the Houthuesens were living temporarily in Tickhill, near Doncaster. According to Houthuesen's biographer, the clown became a symbolic figure for the artist, inseparable in spirit from an artist and a poet, and many of his works portray the clown as philosopher and saint.
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Albert Houthuesen (1903-1979) was born in Amsterdam but came to London with his mother in 1912 after the death of his father. After attending the Royal College of Art, he became a teacher and subsequently a full-time artist. His work covered a wide range of subjects and mediums but he always loved the theatre, dance and clowns, and was inspired to make his first clown drawings in 1944 after meeting the Hermans, a family of Russian Jewish clowns.
