He made the most of his life and did not waste the talent that was given him.. Jacques Augustin Berque, Orientalist and sociologist: born Moliere, Algeria 4 June 1910; twice married (five sons, two daughters); died St- Julien-en-Born, France 27 June 1995. “Is it possible to write the history of a country other than one’s own?” asks Jacques Berque in his book L’Egypte: imperialisme et revolution. He enjoyed the company of his sitters, and had no difficulty with talking, listening and painting at the same time – a skill learned as a POW in Germany. He also painted the musical comedy star Marjorie Browne and Lord Harding, Field Marshal Sir Francis Festing and Dr Mortimer, Bishop of Exeter.In appearance round, pink and beaming, Aubrey Davidson-Houston was the most charming of men. Did he want to be a soldier or an artist? He went on to win the Anatomy Prize at the Slade.As a result of his first and only one-man exhibition, in 1953 at Walker’s Gallery in Bond Street, he received a commission to paint the Queen, and his career as a portrait painter was launched.His other royal commissions included the Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen Mother and the Duchess of Kent.

He was moved from camp to camp and eventually transferred to Oflag 7B. He made one unsuccessful escape attempt and, once the Germans had been persuaded there was nothing subversive about sending drawings of prisoners home to their families, he spent the next five years painting his 700 fellow inmates.After the war he secured a place at the Slade School of Fine Art at roughly the same time as being given the chance of commanding a battalion Painting or promotion? His wife made it simple. He passed out of Sandhurst with a prize cadetship and, because of his Sussex connections, was commissioned in 1925 into the Royal Sussex Regiment, attaching himself later to duties in Australia and Nigeria.His war was brief – he was captured covering the retreat to Dunkirk in 1940. His father, Lt-Col Wilfred Davidson-Houston, was abroad governing Monserrat and St Lucia and Aubrey spent his school holidays in Sussex. He was noted for his painting of hands, so often perfunctorily painted, but so indicative of people’s character and pastimes.
Davidson-Houston was educated at St Edward’s School, Oxford (of which he later became a governor) and Sandhurst. Aubrey Davidson-Houston, soldier and artist: born Dublin 5 February 1906; married 1939 Georgina Dobson (died 1961; one daughter); died 10 June 1995. Every morning, right up until his death at the age of 89, Aubrey Davidson- Houston set out from his home in Esher and was in his studio in London by 7am.

He began as an artist by painting fellow prisoners-of-war in a camp in Germany and became a portraitist of public figures including the Queen, the Prince of Wales and Enid Blyton. A friend later found Al Hansen dead, presumably from a heart attack, behind a large portfolio which was beside his favourite chair to work in.. On the other hand, according to his daughter he went to a pub with friends, complained that he did not feel well and went home. As rumour had it, Hansen was sitting on a bar stool in a German pub drinking with a friend and perhaps lighting up a joint (actually Hansen did not smoke marijuana) when he sighed and fell off the stool dead. At the time of his death, the Poszti-Bott Gallery in Cologne was working with two German museums, organising a Hansen retrospective.Good documentation of his work exists at the Henie Onstad Museum near Oslo, Norway (Hansen was partly of Norwegian descent), the Archiv Sohm in Stuttgart, Germany, and at the Getty Institute for the Arts and Humanities in Santa Monica, California.Even to his death Hansen’s capacity to inspire legend pursued him. As late as 1965 Hansen produced a series of irregularly shaped stretched canvases painted in bright, complementary colours, with mixed geometrical and popular culture imagery.From 1960 Hansen turned increasingly to collage and constructions made out of detritus – Hershey chocolate-bar wrappers and cigarette butts for example, remained a principal focus for the rest of his life.From the late 1970s, because of the increasing conservatism of the New York art world, Hansen spent more and more time in California and in Europe, first in Copenhagen and Amsterdam and finally in Cologne, where he had finally settled permanently by 1982.His last American show was at the Gracie Mansion Gallery in 1989, but he also showed regularly at the Galerie Elisabeth Konig in Vienna. He understood, however, how colours were supposed to work and frequently invited friends to mix and label colours for him.