Better known by his artist name John William, Ernest-Armand Huss was born on
October 9, 1922 in Grand-Bassam, today in Côte d'Ivoire but then in
Afrique-Occidentale Française (AOF), a general government that brought together
eight French West African colonies in a single federation between 1895 and 1958.
Taken from his mother when he was just a year and a half old, he was entrusted
to a distant relative in Seine-et-Marne, where he grew up. After completing his
schooling, at the age of 17 he became an apprentice fitter-toolmaker at the
Renault factory in Boulogne-Billancourt. Duri...