Robert Schmidt-Hamburg

Robert Schmidt-Hamburg (born April 5, 1885 in Berlin , † April 15, 1963 in Laboe ) was a German marine painter .

Life

Born as the son of a Berlin master basket maker, Robert Schmidt only adopted the addition of "Hamburg" to his name at the beginning of the 20th century out of love for the city of Hamburg . Like many of his famous painting colleagues (e.g. Willy Stöwer or Hans Bohrdt ) he was self-taught and undertook a total of 17 sea voyages between 1901 and 1914 for study purposes. He was at sea as a seaman and helmsman for 72 months and got to know large parts of the world, especially the African coast. He sketched and painted harbors, coasts, the sea and ships in front of nature.

In 1910 he rented a studio in Berlin-Moabit and worked as a restorer of valuable paintings.

During the First World War he volunteered for the Imperial Navy and was on board the SMS Lothringen until March 1916 , but did not take part in acts of war. His talent was quickly recognized and he became the illustration of naval warfare used and the Imperial Navy. From 1916 he had a studio in Kiel , where he, still in the service of the Navy, worked as a marine painter and illustrator for various newspapers and magazines.

He moved to Laboe in the early 1920s . His great creative period began between the two world wars . His focus was on the illustration of passenger and merchant shipping, especially its reconstruction. In the 1930s a very successful collaboration began with Norddeutscher Lloyd in Bremen , for which he a. a. very extensive maritime motifs for printed matter of all kinds (such as postcards or ship menus). He was there on the maiden voyage of the Lloyd steamer Bremen to New York and illustrated the successful voyage.

Another focus was the creation of cigarette collector's picture albums , for which he supplied more than 1,000 motifs.

Exhibitions

• The painter Robert Schmidt-Hamburg - a chronicler of German maritime history - June 16 - October 29, 2017 in the Warleberger Hof city ​​museum in Kiel .

literature

• Ships and ports . Morgenstern Museum Bremerhaven 1968
• Theodor F. Siersdorfer: Painter in Schleswig-Holstein Robert Schmidt-Hamburg . 1978
• Boye Meyer-Friese: The marine painter Schmidt-Hamburg 1985
• Robert Schmidt-Hamburg Ports and Ships . Gallery in the new house (exhibition catalog)
• Jörg-M. Hormann, Heinz Otto Müller: Robert Schmidt-Hamburg From seaman to marine painter . 2003
• Katrin Seiler-Kroll, Doris Tillmann: The painter Robert Schmidt-Hamburg. A chronicler of German maritime history in the 20th century . Ludwig, Kiel 2017, ISBN 978-3-86935-327-2 .

Web links

Commons : Robert Schmidt-Hamburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Robert Schmidt-Hamburg in the catalog of the German National Library