12 Classic Works of Art, Marine Paintings - With Footnotes, #41

Christophe J Guise, (American, 20th C)
Whaling ships
Acrylic on board
61" x 19"
Private collection

A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized ship, designed for whaling, the catching or processing of whales. The sail or steam-driven whaleship of the 16th to early 20th century and the floating factory. There have also been vessels which combined the two activities, such as the bottlenose whalers of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Whaleships had two or more whaleboats, open rowing boats used in the capture of whales. Whaleboats brought the captured whales to the whaleships to be flensed or cut up. Here the blubber was rendered into oil using two or three try-pots set in a brick furnace called the tryworks.

At first, whale catchers either brought the whales they killed to a whaling station or factory ship anchored in a sheltered bay or inlet. Later, with the development of the slipway at the ship's stern, whale catchers were able to transfer their catch to factory ships operating in the open sea. More on Whaling ships

Christophe J Guise, (American, 20th C) was active/lived in United States, England. Christopher Guise is known for marine paintings.

Johannes Holst, (1880 - 1965)
Cutty Sark, c. 1944
Oil on canvas
70 x 99,5 cm
Private collection

Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the Clyde in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development which halted as sailing ships gave way to steam propulsion.

The opening of the Suez Canal (also in 1869) meant that steam ships now enjoyed a much shorter route to China, so Cutty Sark spent only a few years on the tea trade before turning to the trade in wool from Australia, where she held the record time to Britain for ten years. Improvements in steam technology meant that gradually steamships also came to dominate the longer sailing route to Australia and the ship was sold to the Portuguese company Ferreira and Co. in 1895, and renamed Ferreira. She continued as a cargo ship until purchased by retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman in 1922, who used her as a training ship. After his death, Cutty Sark was transferred to the Thames Nautical Training College, Greenhithe in 1938 where she became an auxiliary cadet training ship. By 1954 she was transferred to permanent dry dock at Greenwich, London on public display. More on the Cutty Sark

Johannes Holst, (October 22, 1880 in Hamburg-Altenwerder - July 5, 1965 in Hamburg). Influenced by the profession of his father,  he was a skipper,  and by the closeness to Elbe and sea, Johannes became interested in shipping at an early age.
He completed an apprenticeship as an ornamental painter at the studio of Julius and Hinrich Lüdders.

At first he painted fishing boats, his later works were of sailing ships and steamers on the high seas. Stormy weather at sea are characteristical for his paintings. Holst created works of very high quality in a realistic manner of painting. The ships painted by him show every detail. The water is also depicted very realistically.

Holst was a very active artist and was tasked by many shipowners to paint portraits of their ships because of his high quality works. Portraits of sailing ships, for the shipping company F. Laeisz in Hamburg et al., form the main part of his complete works that consists of about 1000 paintings. The paintings of Holst are especially valued in northern Germany. More on Johannes Holst

Frans Hens, (Belgian 1856-1928)
Harbor scene with steamship
Oil on canvas
23-1/2" x 39-1/2" 
Private collection

Frans Hens (1 August 1856, Antwerp – 11 May 1928, Antwerp) was a Belgian post-impressionist painter, draftsman and printmaker. He was one of the first European artists to paint in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Hens was born in Antwerp and began his studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1872. He went to America in 1873, but returned the following year to continue his education at the Academy, where he became influenced by exhibitions of post-impressionist art.

In 1886, he visited the  "Congo Free State". Finding himself impressed with the artistic potential of Africa, he made another trip there from 1887 to 1888. He travelled throughout the Bas-Congo, then sailed up the Congo River to what is now Équateur Province, painting landscapes along the way. Upon his return to Belgium, he held several successful exhibitions, but was later ignored at the Exposition Internationale d'Anvers (1894).

Following this snub, he joined with Eugène Broerman to produce a diorama that would be displayed in a pavilion devoted to the Congo (currently the Royal Museum for Central Africa) at the Brussels International (1897). The project was never fully realized. Ironically, many of his works are now part of the permanent collection at the museum.

He was a member of several artists' associations, including Pour l'Art and Weest U Zelve (Be Yourself) and was a founding member of De XIII and Kunst van Heden (Art of Today). From 1919 to 1923, he was a teacher at the Royal Academy. Despite the prominence given to his African paintings, most of his work was focused on the Belgian coast, with ships as a recurring theme. He died in his native city of Antwerp, aged 71. More on Frans Hens 

John Cuthbert Hare, (American, 1908-1978)
Overcast scene with boats in a harbor
Oil on canvas
height 31'', width 25''
Private collection

John Cuthbert Hare, 1908-1978, was a watercolorist who painted boats, seascapes and harbor scenes. He was primarily associated with New England, especially Cape Cod, Massachusetts where he spent his summers from 1938 to 1965. However, he lived in Florida where he was a member of the St. Augustine Art Association. He first studied commercial art in Brooklyn at the Pratt Institute and also studied at the Art Students League in Manhattan. He worked for Hearst newspapers corporation, and in 1933 married. In the next few years, he and his wife traveled extensively, camping and painting and exhibiting his work in galleries. In Provincetown, they also exhibited paintings that Hare had completed in Florida.The couple liked St. Augustine so well that they returned two years later, joined the Art Association, and set up a studio. Attracted to the rolling farmland, they moved to Amherst, Massachusetts. He also painted at Gloucester, and from 1967 to 1977 they lived at Yarmouthport and in 1977, moved to Palm Beach, Florida where he died three years later.His work is in the collections of the Lowe Art Museum, the Lightner Museum in Florida and the Smith College Museum of Art in Massachusetts. More on John Cuthbert Hare

Simon van Gelderen, (1814 - 1890)
Hazy Morning in a Harbour
Oil on canvas
61 x 80,5 cm
Private collection

Henri Eugene Callot,  (French 1875-1956)
Marine painting with sailboat
Oil on canvas
23-1/2" x 32" 
Private collection

CALLOT, Henri Eugène (Born 20 December 1875, in La Rochelle; died 22 December 1956, in Paris), Henri Callot studied under Jules Lefebvre and Tony Robert-Fleury and went on to exhibit at the Salon des Artistes Français from 1898 to 1936, securing election to the Society and a gold medal (1920). He also exhibited at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Art. More on Henri Eugene Callot

KOEKKOEK, HERMANUS the Elder, (Middleburg 1815 - 1882 Haarlem) 
Dutch coastal view with ships at sea. 
Oil on canvas. 
37.5 x 59.5 cm. 
Private collection

KOEKKOEK, HERMANUS the Elder, (Middleburg 1815 - 1882 Haarlem). The Koekkoek family is one of the most celebrated artistic families in the history of Dutch 19th century painting. Hermanus Koekkoek was born in Middelburg and was the youngest of four sons of Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek (1778-1851). His eldest brother Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803-1862) was renowned for his landscape painting and was arguably the most famous artist of the family. Hermanus trained with his father, moving to Amsterdam in 1832 where he exhibited at the Koninklijke Academy. Like his father, he mostly painted maritime subjects and travelled extensively throughout the Netherlands for his inspiration. He had four sons, all of whom were talented painters in their own right, notably Willem Koekkoek (1839-1895) who exhibited regularly in Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam. More on the Koekkoek family


Joe Duncan Gleason, (1881 - 1959 Glendale, CA) 
'Clipper Bohemia, From Sketch Made While Under Sail'
Oil on canvas laid to canvas 
30' H x 40' W 
Private collection


Clipper Bohemia; built on speculation by Houghton Brothers at Bath; ME in 1875. This vessel was used primarily in the California trade; making 12 Westward passages averaging 132 days and 11 Eastward passages averaging 119 days. In 1894-95 she made one voyage in the Philipine Trade. In 1897 she joined the Alaska Packers fleet and was home ported in San Francisco. Bohemia remained in the Alaskan Cannery service until 1925 when she was sold to the shipbreakers. However; she was saved from the breakers and purchased by the Los Angeles Motion Pictures Concerns company and became part of the 'Movie Fleet'. In 1926 Duncan Gleason was hired as a consultant to Cecil B. DeMille to work on the silent film 'Yankee Clipper'. Gleason sailed aboard Bohemia which was used for on deck scenes in the movie. A bow sketch study Gleaon made in 1926 became the foundation for this work which was painted nearly 25 years later. Bohemia was deliberately blown up and sunk during the making of a movie about submarine warfare in the early 1930's. More on Downeaster Bohemia


For Joe Duncan Gleason,  (1881 - 1959 Glendale, CA) It was boating - and life on the sea, in general - that steered the motley professions and avocations of the California painter Joe Duncan Gleason. Trained at the Chicago Art Institute and the New York Arts Students' League, he illustrated for various magazines, including Leslie's Monthly, Ladies Home Journal, and Forecast, from 1903 to 1914; during this period, while competing as a gymnast in national competitions, he acquired a 36-foot yawl and sailed often on Long Island Sound. Gleason's earliest paintings are Impressionist in style and depict the scenic hills of his childhood Los Angeles as well as the peopled shores of nearby Laguna Beach. A brief return to New York from 1919 to 1924 inspired Gleason to take up marine painting, model shipbuilding, and writing about sailing: he published Windjammers, a book of etchings (1922), followed later by Islands of California (1950). In the mid-1920s, Gleason established his studio in the harbor town of San Pedro, California, and began consulting for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Warner Bros., providing visual guides for the ships that appeared in such films as Yankee Clipper, Captain Blood, and The Charge of the Light Brigade. When not painting or lecturing on historical ships, he was sailing, both with the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary during WW II and recreationally with the California Yacht Club.More on Joe Duncan Gleason

 STUDIO OF COURBET, GUSTAVE, (Ornans 1819 - 1877 La Tour-de-Peilz) 
The wave. 
Oil on canvas. 
38 x 56 cm. 
Private collection

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.

Courbet's paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s brought him his first recognition. They challenged convention by depicting unidealized peasants and workers, often on a grand scale traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects. Courbet's subsequent paintings were mostly of a less overtly political character: landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes and still lifes. He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the Paris Commune, and lived in exile in Switzerland from 1873 until his death. More Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet

Sir John Lavery, R.A., R.H.A., R.S.A., 1856-1941
THE ANGLER, c. 1911
Oil on canvasboard
25 by 35.5cm., 10 by 14in
Private collection

The Angler is likely to have been painted on the long strand to the east of the Medina at Tangier. Here, during winter rains, a stream known locally as the ‘Jews’ River’, ran off into the sea. It is unlikely to have been suitable for fishing, yet it and the neighbouring rocks were an endless source of fascination for the children in the Lavery entourage. More on this painting

Sir John Lavery RA (20 March 1856 – 10 January 1941) was an Irish painter best known for his portraits and wartime depictions. Born in Belfast Lavery attended Haldane Academy in Glasgow in the 1870s and the Académie Julian in Paris in the early 1880s. He returned to Glasgow and was associated with the Glasgow School. In 1888 he was commissioned to paint the state visit of Queen Victoria to the Glasgow International Exhibition. This launched his career as a society painter and he moved to London soon after. In London he became friendly with James McNeill Whistler and was clearly influenced by him.

Lavery was appointed an official artist in the First World War. Ill-health, however, prevented him from travelling to the Western Front. A serious car crash during a Zeppelin bombing raid also kept him from fulfilling this role as war artist. He remained in Britain and mostly painted boats, aeroplanes and airships. 

After the war he was knighted and in 1921 he was elected to the Royal Academy.


He and his wife were tangentially involved in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. They gave the use of their London home to the Irish negotiators during the negotiations leading to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In 1929, Lavery made substantial donations of his work to both The Ulster Museum and the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery and in the 1930s he returned to Ireland. He received honorary degrees from the University of Dublin and Queen's University Belfast. He was also made a free man of both Dublin and Belfast. More on Sir John Lavery








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01 Marine Work, GEORGE SAVARY WASSON's USS Brooklyn at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, With Footnotes, #320

GEORGE SAVARY WASSON (American, 1855-1932) USS Brooklyn at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, c. 1901 Oil on canvas 30 x 45 in. Private collect...