Biography
Henri van Straaten (b. Antwerp, Belgium 1892 – disappeared without a trace, Kalmthout, Belgium September 7 1944) received his artistic training at the National Higher Institute of Fine Arts, Antwerp under the direction of Edward Pellens (1872-1947). He was also taught by the Dutch visionary wood-engraver J. J. Aarts (1871-1934) at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam during the First World War. Van Straaten was on of the founders of Lumière (1919-1940), an avant-garde Belgian society of artists and after the First World War he belonged a group of Belgian graphic artists called Vijf (Five - with Frans Masereel, Jan Frans Cantré, Joszef Cantré and Joris Minne). He became notorious with his Crossroads and with albums such as Don Juan (1925), Emigrants (1927), La Boudeuse (1931), Poet of the Arms (1932), The Soldier's lLve (1934) and The Meek (1942). From 1933 he lived in Heide-Kalmhout where a street is now named after him.
