Albert Louden

b. 1943, English

Tags: Drawing, Painting

Albert Louden was born in Blackpool, England, and grew up in the East End of London. When he was fifteen years old, he left school to work, first helping a furrier and later driving a van. He started drawing and painting in watercolor at age nineteen and went on to create works with pastel and oil paint.

Louden creates surreal hybrid figures with facial features that may double as another figure or an animal. Known for its brightly colored, outlined figures and pared-down landscapes, his work has become increasingly abstract. He never titles his works.

Ignoring the expectations of “outsider” artists, of which he is well aware, Louden enjoys his success, frequenting museums and galleries and looking at catalogues. He especially appreciates works by Scottie Wilson, Francis Bacon, and L. S. Lowry and has a collection of books on nineteenth- and twentieth-century art. Louden’s work has been featured in seminal group exhibitions, including Outsiders at the Hayward Gallery in 1979 and Artists Make Faces, a show featuring trained and self-taught artists organized by Victor Musgrave and Monika Kinley in 1983. The Serpentine Gallery in London sold all his works featured in a solo exhibition in 1985. Louden lives and works in London.