Henry de Buys Roessingh (né William Henry de Buys Roessingh) was born in Bremen, Germany in 1899; he studied in Paris and travelled to the Netherlands and Italy, exhibiting at the Kunsthalle Bremen when he was only 21 years old. Following this early European success, de Buys Roessingh immigrated to England in 1931. After the outbreak of war and following his release from internment as an 'enemy alien' during 1940–41, Roessingh continued to exhibit extensively in London, Bremen, and Paris, and was primarily known for his vivid use of colour and his wide range of artistic influences.
Painter and draughtsman, Henry de Buys Roessingh (né William Henry de Buys Roessingh) was born to a German father and a French mother in Bremen, Germany in 1899. His nude figure drawings were featured in Zeit-Echo, an art magazine produced during the First World War, as early as 1915, when he was only 16 years old. He continued his training in Italy and Holland and moved to Paris in 1919, studying painting at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under Antoine Bourdelle. During the course of his studies in Paris, he continued exhibiting in Germany: in November 1921, his oil paintings were exhibited at the Kunsthalle Bremen alongside the work of Swiss Expressionist artist, Walter Bangerter and French Cubist, Marie Laurencin, and his oil painting Sommer (Summer) was reproduced alongside a review of the exhibition in German art magazine Der Querschnitt. In the same year, he exhibited a landscape at the Die Großer Berliner exhibition, alongside major artists of the Freie Secession, including Max Liebermann. In 1928, he exhibited a still life, a portrait, and a landscape at the Salon des Tuileries in Paris. While living in Paris, he took part in the Salon des Indépendants, an annual exhibition of independent artists. He also met Marguerite Dennis, who worked at the Molyneux fashion house; they were married in 1928, though later divorced. He also spent time painting in the South of France, the coasts of Normandy, and London, prior to his immigration to England. According to a 1930 review in the German art magazine Der Kunstwanderer, Roessingh cited Romanticism and Impressionism as his primary influences, seen through the use of light colours in his earlier landscapes, as well as and the work of Eugène Delacroix.
Roessingh immigrated to England in 1931 and began to exhibit regularly at the renowned Wildenstein Gallery in London; his 1935 exhibition, profiled by Frank Rutter, the Sunday Times’ art critic from 1903–37, featured landscapes of Normandy, as well as still life paintings and flower studies. Reviews of his work, initially in German art magazines and later in The Times, highlight his ability as a colourist and his wide range of artistic influences. However, following Hitler’s accession to the Chancellorship in 1933, Roessingh’s work was labelled ‘degenerate’ and his oil painting Beflaggte Straße (Street Decorated with Flags) was confiscated from the Kunsthalle Bremen in August 1937, along with another oil painting and six watercolours. In 1939, he had a solo exhibition at the Petit Palais in Paris at the invitation of the French government; the French state acquired his Still Life with a Pipe in September 1937 and another painting in May 1939.
After the outbreak of war, and following the introduction of mass internment in Britain for so-called 'enemy aliens' in June 1940, he was interned in Onchan camp on the Isle of Man. There, he shared Cabin 30 with camp impresario, German painter and sculptor, Jack Bilbo (1907–67) and participated in Bilbo’s first art exhibition held in the cabin on 26–30 August 1940, which featured 191 pieces by 22 artists, including Ernst Nonnenmacher and Heinz Kiewe. The exhibition was reviewed by Hans Bodansky in The Onchan Pioneer, a magazine produced by the internees. Roessingh's work was also included in Onchan's second exhibition, held in Bilbo’s cabin from 26 October to 6 November 1940. During internment, Roessingh innovatively used whatever art materials were available to him, making a sign for Bilbo’s camp cabaret out of a tea chest and painting on discarded orange crates. When Bilbo was released from Onchan on 7 November 1940, Roessingh gifted him an album of gouache paintings depicting circus scenes, nudes, and scenes from life in the camp (Private Collection). Roessingh was then transferred to Hutchinson Camp (the so-called 'artists' camp' due to the high number of internees with established artistic reputationsin Europe) in Douglas, Isle of Man, and was finally released on 12 December 1941. Following this, he settled in South Kensington, London and became a naturalised British citizen in July 1947.
After spending six months living and working in Portugal, his paintings of Portuguese landscapes were exhibited at the Foz Palace in Lisbon in 1948. The exhibit was repeated in 1949 at the renowned Wildenstein Gallery in London and was opened by Henrique Caldeira Queiroz, First Secretary of the Portuguese Embassy. Roessingh's last exhibition was held in 1951 at the Galerie Methey in Paris. Henry de Buys Roessingh died in the seaside town of Estoril, Portugal in 1954. in 2010, his art from internment featured in Ben Uri's touring exhibition to the Isle of Man, Forced Journeys: Artists in Britain c. 1933–1945. In the UK public domain, two of his gouache circus scenes are held by Tate, attributed to A. Roessingh.