Henry Cassiers - Houses on Stadsgracht in Winter

A Winter Scene with Houses on a City Canal.

Henri Cassiers (Antwerp, 11 August 1858 - Ixelles, 27 February 1944) was a Flemish artist, best known for his applied art: illustrations, posters, wall plates and postcards, often with a maritime slant.
Cassiers trained as an architect and received his artistic training at the academies of Brussels and Sint-Joost-ten-Node. He soon developed his own style and theme, focused on maritime scenes ("marines") and city and village views, both in Flanders (eg in Genk) and in the Netherlands. He was particularly attracted by the Dutch costumes, especially those of Zeeland and Katwijk.
Between 1886 and 1893 he illustrated many popular weeklies such as De Vlaamsche Patriot, Le Globe Illustré, L'Illustration Européenne. In addition, illustrations by him appeared in various books, including by Camille Mauclair, Emile Verhaeren, Cyriel Buysse and Jean d'Ardenne. The latter's Guide descriptif illustré de la côte de Flandre (Brussels, 1888) contains no fewer than 106 drawings by Cassiers.
Cassiers' style was also very suitable for publicity purposes, and especially tourist places and shipping companies regularly called on him. He is best known for his work for the Red Star Line. From 1898 he made many posters, postcards, menus and other advertising material for this regular service.
He was also a member of the Belgian artists' association Les Hydrophiles.
A major retrospective of his work was held in 1994, which was shown at the Vleeshuis Museum in Antwerp and the Katwijks Museum in Katwijk, and a catalog was published.