Fritz Stoltenberg (1855-1921) by Oscar Björck

Fritz Stoltenberg (7 April 1855 -13 November 1921) was a German landscape and marine painter. After a summer with the Skagen Painters in 1884, he returned to Kiel where he painted and sketched the old town and the harbor, publishing many of his illustrations in local magazines.

Early life

Born in 1855 as the son of a sea captain in the north German town of

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...

, by the age of 17 Stoltenberg had already demonstrated his artistic talents with sketches of his home town and its idyllic surroundings. Thanks to his studies at the academies of

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

and Kassel, he became a skilled draftsman and landscape painter, supplemented by extensive travels to Italy, Algeria, France, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands."Ausstellungarchiv: Fritz Stoltenberg (1855–1921). Ein Landschafts- und Marinemaler aus Kiel"
, Sdat- & Schifffahrtsmuseum, Kiel. Retrieved 24 October 2013.

Career

In 1882, Stoltenberg became associated with the painters who gathered each summer in Egernsund on the north coast of

Flensburg Firth Flensburg Firth or Flensborg Fjord (german: Flensburger Förde; da, Flensborg Fjord) is the westernmost inlet of the Baltic Sea. It forms part of the border between Germany to the south and Denmark to the north, on the eastern side of Schleswig ...

to paint and sketch in the open air. He was the only Egernsund artist to join the Skagen Painters in the far north of

Jutland Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

, arriving in

Skagen Skagen () is Denmark's northernmost town, on the east coast of the Skagen Odde peninsula in the far north of Jutland, part of Frederikshavn Municipality in Nordjylland, north of Frederikshavn and northeast of Aalborg. The Port of Skage ...

in 1884. There his painting benefitted from his associations with P.S. Krøyer,

Michael Ancher Michael Peter Ancher (9 June 1849 – 19 September 1927) was a Danish realist artist, and widely known for his paintings of fishermen, the lakes, and other scenes from the Danish fishing community in Skagen. Early life and education Michael ...

and Oscar Björck. It is believed his photographs of a lunch in the garden of the Anchers house on Markvej in Skagen in 1884 may have served P.S. Krøyer as a basis for his painting ''

Hip, Hip, Hurrah! ''Hip, Hip, Hurrah!'' (Danish: ''Hip, hip, hurra! Kunstnerfest på Skagen'') is an oil-on-canvas painting from 1888 by Danish painter Peder Severin Krøyer. Description The work shows various members of the Skagen Painters: a group of Danish, ...

''."Skagen i 1880'erne og 90'erne"
Skagens Museum. Retrieved 24 October 2013. After making a name for himself as a ''plein air'' painter, in 1889 Stoltenberg married Anna Scharenberg from a well-to-do Hamburg family, settling in his home town of Kiel. There he painted scenes of the city and its harbor, publishing some 2,000 illustrations, mainly engravings, in the more popular weeklies of the day. Of particular note are his sketches of the old town and the fishing village of Alt Ellerbek, not to mention his illustrations of the latest developments in marine engineering. He also painted the German fleet and its crews sailing on the Kiel Firth. In 1894, together with Georg Burmester,

Hans Olde Johannes Wilhelm (Hans) Olde (27 April 1855, Süderau – 25 October 1917, Kassel) was a German painter and art school administrator. Life He originally planned to follow family tradition and become a farmer but, over his father's strong ob ...

and

Julius Fürst Julius Fürst (; 12 May 1805, Żerków, South Prussia – 9 February 1873, Leipzig), born Joseph Alsari, was a Jewish German orientalist and the son of noted maggid, teacher, and Hebrew grammarian Jacob Alsari. Fürst was a distinguished scho ...

, he founded the Schleswig-Holstein Cultural Association which he chaired until 1900. In 1914, he retired to Schönberg where he died in 1921.

References

Literature

*Tellre Wolf-Timm, Doris Tillmann: ''Fritz Stoltenberg – Ein Landschafts- und Marinemaler aus Kiel'', Bossen, Heizte, 2009, *

External links

Entry on Stoltenberg
@ the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek {{DEFAULTSORT:Stoltenberg, Fritz 1855 births 1921 deaths Skagen Painters German marine artists Artists from Kiel 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists German male painters