Signed dated “3 Juin 1888”. Belgian post-impressionist artist, the son of a butcher, he studied at the Antwerp Academy in the early 1870s under the painter Jacob Jacobs (1812-1879). He belonged to the Wechelse School but not very inclined to classicism, he left Belgium for the USA in 1873 at 17. Hens wanted later to join the Congo trying to be hired by the independent state but without success. He went there in 1886 and the following years. His works illustrating Africa were exhibited in Brussels and Antwerp in the years 1889-90 and met the public interest during the Universal Expositions. Teacher at the National Higher Institute for the Fine Arts in Antwerp in his last years from 1919 to 1923. His works are exhibited in the museums of Aarlen, Antwerp (Royal Museum for the Fine Arts), Brussels, Ghent (Museum for the Fine Arts) and Tervuren (Royal Museum for Central Africa). He is especially known as a painter of the Escaut river. A street was named after him in Kiel in Germany.