15 Classic Works of Art, Marine Paintings, Safe Harbours - With Footnotes, #19

Adolf Kaufmann, (1848-1916)

Gdansk; Harbor; August 1902

Oil on board

15;6 x 12;8 inch;

Private collection

Adolf Kaufmann (* 15. May 1848 in Troppau , Austrian Silesia ; † 25. November 1916 in Vienna) was an Austrian landscape - and marine painter, initially self-taught. He completed his studies with Emile van Marcke de Lummen (1827-1890) in Paris and undertook numerous study trips within Europe and the Orient. He lived in Paris, the city that exerted a special fascination for him, Berlin , Dusseldorf and Munich . After Germany he traveled to Russia , Norway , Poland and Holland .

In 1890 he settled permanently in Vienna.  With the Austrian landscape painters Carl Freiherr von Merode (1853-1909) and Henry Lester, he founded a "school of painting for women". He returned to his life again and and began to travel to Paris, Normandie, the Brittany and by Belgium . In France, he signed his work with the pseudonym A. Guyot.

Adolf Kaufmann (1848–1916)

Reges life in the fishing port (Danzig?), c. 1916

Oil on Canvas

98 x 100 cm

The Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) and nearly 200 towns in the surrounding areas. It was created on 15 November 1920 in accordance with the terms of theTreaty of Versailles after the end of World War I. More

Due to his outstanding talent Kaufmann enjoyed great prestige in Paris. He received numerous medals as awards and honors, especially on the occasion of the Paris World Exhibition . Many art lovers bought his paintings. As a member of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, he was frequently exhibited at major exhibitions in the Künstlerhaus in Munich Glass Palace and the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. The Vienna Society took to his works enthusiasticly. In 1909 he became a full member of the Vienna Künstlerhaus. In 1910 he left to Holland in 1912 to Amsterdam and South Tyrol. In 1913 he traveled again to Holland and thereafter to Norway, where his Fjord pictures emerged. In 1914 he undertook his last trip to northern Italy.

Adolf Kaufmann's works were often acquired by representatives of the aristocracy, the Austrian imperial family, Napoleon III, Crown Princess Stephanie , Archduke Friedrich , Czar Nicholas II. Of Russia, Queen Isabella II. Of Spain and the Grand Ducal art collection Baden-Baden . These works are represented in numerous collections and museums, such as the Museum Opava, the Art Museum of Istanbul and the Leopold Museum in Vienna. More

Theresa Bernstein (March 1, 1890 – February 13, 2002)

Sailors in Parade

Oil on board

27 x 35 1/4 in.

 Private collection

Theresa Bernstein (March 1, 1890 – February 13, 2002) was a Polish-born American artist, painter, and writer. She was born in Kraków, an only child of Isidore and Anne Bernstein, who emigrated to the United States. She studied with Harriet Sartain, Elliott Daingerfield, Henry Snell, Daniel Garber and others at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women now Moore College of Art & Design.

She graduated in 1911 with an award for general achievement (the college awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1992). After enrolling at the Art Students League in New York City, where she took life and portraiture classes with William Merritt Chase, she traveled for a second time to Europe with her mother, her first trip abroad having been made in 1905. She admired Robert Henri's style of depicting the city's everyday drama.

Bernstein was a member of the National Association of Women Artists and the North Shore Art Association. Her works were exhibited extensively with the National Academy of Design and the Society of Independent Artists (which she co-founded with John Sloan). More

Charles Herbert Woodbury (July 14, 1864 – January 21, 1940)

The Breaker

Oil on board

36 1/4 x 40 in.

 Private collection

Charles Herbert Woodbury (July 14, 1864 – January 21, 1940), United States marine painter, was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, where his earliest work was part of the oeuvre of the group later known as the Lynn Beach Painters. While an undergraduate at MIT he became a regular exhibitor at, and at 19 the youngest member of, the Boston Art Club . After graduation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (with degree in Mechanical Engineering), in 1886 Woodbury had great success painting up the New England coast and in the towns and beaches of Nova Scotia and exhibiting the results. 

From January to June 1891 he was a pupil of the Académie Julian in Paris, after which he went to Holland, where he studied the techniques of the modern Dutch painters. Upon his return to New England he settled in Boston at his winter studio and spent his summers in the small fishing village of Ogunquit, Maine; there he founded one of the most successful of the summer art colony schools that even survived his death. He was one of the most sought-after teachers of his generation, having begun teaching on a regular basis while a freshman at M.I.T. 

Charles Herbert Woodbury (July 14, 1864 – January 21, 1940)

The Red Bathing Suit

Oil on board

 Private collection

Ironically, he had little formal training himself other than a few months of classes at the Academy Julian in Paris. Like Winslow Homer, another New England painter with an affinity for summers in Maine, he preferred "to work out his salvation with little help from others in his profession". Nevertheless, Woodbury maintained a close friendship with John Singer Sargent and a pleasant acquaintance with many of his contemporaries including J. Alden Weir and Childe Hassam. He was president of the Boston Water Color Club, and became associate of the National Academy of Design, New York in 1906 and a full member in 1907. His wife, Marcia Oakes Woodbury, born in 1865 at South Berwick, Maine, also became known as a painter. She died at the age of 49 in 1913. More

Frederick Judd Waugh (1861 – 1940) 

The Setting Sun

Oil on board

48 x 60 in.

 Private collection

Frederick Judd Waugh (September 13, 1861 in Bordentown, New Jersey – September 10, 1940) was an American artist, primarily known as a marine artist. During World War I, he designed ship camouflage for the U.S. Navy, under the direction of Everett L. Warner.

Waugh was the son of a well-known Philadelphia portrait painter, Samuel Waugh. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with Thomas Eakins, and at the Académie Julian in Paris, with Adolphe-William Bouguereau. After leaving Paris, he moved to England, residing on the island of Sark in the English Channel, where he made his living as a seascape painter.

Frederick Judd Waugh (1861 – 1940) 

Wild Weather, c. 1930

Medium:Oil on masonite

Dimensions:29 7/8 x 48 1/8 in. (75.9 x 122.2 cm)

In 1908, Waugh returned to the U.S. and settled in Montclair Heights, New Jersey. He had no studio, until art collector William T. Evans offered him one in exchange for one painting a year. In later years, he lived on Bailey Island, Maine, and in Provincetown, Massachusetts. 

In 1918, Waugh was recommended to serve as a camouflage artist (or camoufleur) for the U.S. Navy, as a member of the Design Section of its marine camouflage unit (Behrens 2002, 2009). That section was located in Washington, D.C., and was headed by American painter Everett L. Warner (Warner 1919). More

Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) 

Coastal Landscape

Oil on paper laid down on board

7 1/8 x 17 1/2 in.

 Private collection

Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German-born American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. To paint the scenes, Bierstadt joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion. Though not the first artist to record these sites, Bierstadt was the foremost painter of these scenes for the remainder of the 19th century.

Born in Germany, Bierstadt was brought to the United States at the age of one by his parents. He later returned to study painting for several years in Düsseldorf. He became part of the Hudson River School in New York, an informal group of like-minded painters who started painting along this scenic river. Their style was based on carefully detailed paintings with romantic, almost glowing lighting, sometimes called luminism. An important interpreter of the western landscape, Bierstadt, along with Thomas Moran, is also grouped with the Rocky Mountain School. More

Elihu Vedder (February 26, 1836 – January 29, 1923)

Off Pier Head, Viareggio, Italy, c. 1881-1886

24 x 37 3/4 in.

Oil on canvas

 Private collection

Viareggio is a city and comune in northern Tuscany, Italy, on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The city traces its roots back to the first half of the 16th century when it became the only gate to the sea for the Republic of Lucca. The oldest building in Viareggio, known as Torre Matilde, dates back to this time and was built by the Lucchesi in 1541 as a defensive fortification to fight the constant menace of corsair incursions. More

Elihu Vedder (February 26, 1836 – January 29, 1923) was an American symbolist painter, book illustrator, and poet, born in New York City. He is best known for his fifty-five illustrations for Edward FitzGerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (deluxe edition, published by Houghton Mifflin).

Vedder trained in New York City with Tompkins H. Matteson, then in Paris with François-Édouard Picot. Finally, he completed his studies in Italy - where he was strongly influenced not only by Italian Renaissance work but also by the modern Macchiaioli painters and the living Italian landscape. He first visited Italy from 1858 until 1860, becoming deeply emotionally attached to fellow painter Giovanni Costa. Their idyllic trips through the Italian countryside were cut short because Vedder's father cut off his financial allowance.

Vedder returned to the USA, penniless, during the American Civil War, and made a small living by undertaking commercial illustrations. He was involved in the bohemian 'Pfaff's' coffee house group, and painted some of his most memorable paintings notable for their visionary nature, romantic imagery and often Oriental influences.

Elihu Vedder (February 26, 1836 – January 29, 1923)

Greek Girls Bathing, c. 1872–77

Oil on canvas

18 1/4 x 58 3/4 in. (46.4 x 149.2 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Although Vedder possessed a feverish imagination, little of it is evident in this painting, which he made for the financier J. Pierpont Morgan. The general effect of the picture is that of an antique sculptured frieze. Behind the graceful young figures, the shallow stage is bounded by a sea of gently rolling waves, and, in front, concentric arcs of foam mark a receding swell. More

At the end of the Civil War, he left America to live in Italy. He married Caroline Rosekrans. Elihu Vedder and his wife had four children, only two of whom survived. His daughter Anita Herriman Vedder played a vital role in handling the business of her father, who was notorious for his general aloofness towards details. Elihu's son Enoch Rosekrans Vedder was a promising architect. Elihu had a home in Rome and - after the financial success of his 1884 Rubaiyat work - on the Isle of Capri.

Elihu Vedder (February 26, 1836 – January 29, 1923)

Greek Girls Bathing, c. 1872–77

Detail

Vedder visited England many times, and was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites. He was also influenced by the work of English and Irish mystics such as William Blake and William Butler Yeats. In 1890 Vedder helped establish the In Arte Libertas group in Italy.

Tiffany commissioned him to design glassware, mosaics and statuettes for the company. He decorated the hallway of the Reading Room of the Washington Library of Congress, and his mural paintings can still be seen there. More

Samuel Atkins, (fl. 1787–1808)

A view off Dover

watercolor on paper

8-1/4 x 11-3/4 in.(15.8 x 29.8 cm.)

Private collection

Dover is a town and major ferry port in South East England. It faces France across the strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel. The surrounding chalk cliffs are known as the White Cliffs of Dover. More

Samuel Atkins (fl. 1787–1808), was a British marine painter. Atkins contributed to the Royal Academy between 1787 and 1796. From 1796 to 1804 he was in the East Indies, when he returned to England, and continued to exhibit until 1808. He worked in oil and water-colour. The water-colour collections of South Kensington and the British Museum have each an example of his work. It is rather early in manner, low in tone, quiet, and truthful. A picture of ‘Shakespeare's Cliff, Dover,’ has been engraved after him by R. and D. Havell. Nagler attributes to this Samuel Atkins the originals of two engravings of sea-subjects after ‘— Atkins:’ ‘Ships in Sight of Harbour,’ engraved in aquatint by H. Merke; and ‘A Sea Piece,’ by F. Janinet. A water-colour drawing also, ‘Seascape with Ships,’ he gives to this painter. More

Thomas Buttersworth (5 May 1768 – November 1842)

The battle of Cape St. Vincent

Watercolor on paper

14 x 19-1/2 in. (35.5 x 49.5 cm.)

Private collection

The Battle of Cape St Vincent (14 February 1797) was one of the opening battles of the Anglo-Spanish War (1796–1808), as part of the French Revolutionary Wars, where a British fleet under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeated a larger Spanish fleet under Admiral Don José de Córdoba y Ramos near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal. More

Thomas Buttersworth (5 May 1768 – November 1842) was an English seaman of the Napoleonic wars period who became a marine painter. He produced works to commission, and was little exhibited during his lifetime. More

Robert Cleveley, (1747-1809)
 Battle of Cape St. Vincent,  c. 1797
National Maritime Museum

The Battle of Cape St Vincent (14 February 1797), see above

Robert Cleveley (1747, Deptford – 28 September 1809, Dover) was an English maritime painter. His father and twin brother (John Cleveley the Elder, c.1712–1777, and John Cleveley the Younger, 1747–1786) were also artists, with John the Younger (and possibly Robert too, to judge from his style) gaining some training in watercolours from Paul Sandby, previously a teacher at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.

John the Elder had tried and failed to make a living in working in a dockyard, and so did Robert, as a caulker. However, mocked by other dockyard workers for wearing gloves whilst working, John did not enjoy his time there, giving it up and in 1770 volunteering for the navy as a clerk. His first service as a clerk was briefly under Captain William Locker (who acted as patron to artists probably known to John the Elder), then soon afterwards under Captain George Vandeput on his voyage in the Asia to the West Indies and North America, during which time Vandeput became a lifelong friend. The Asia returned in 1777, and from then to the end of his life Robert followed a double career as purser on board various ships stationed in the Home Fleet and as a marine painter. This meant he could exhibit his works as "Robert Cleveley of the Royal Navy". More

Thomas Buttersworth, (5 May 1768 – November 1842)

Shipping off Gravesend and Naval Cutters off Portsmouth

Oil on board

6 x 8-1/4 in. (15.2 x 20.9 cm.)

Private collection

Gravesend is an ancient town in northwest Kent, England, situated on the south bank of the Thames Estuary and opposite Tilbury in Essex.

Its geographical situation has given Gravesend strategic importance throughout the maritime and communications history of South East England. A Thames Gateway commuter town, it retains strong links with the River Thames, not least through the Port of London More

Thomas Buttersworth (5 May 1768 – November 1842), see above

French School, late 18th Century

A harbour with elegant figures on the quayside

oil on canvas 

55.5 x 73.1cm (21 7/8 x 28 3/4in)

Private collection

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