Oil on canvas
71 x 100 cm, 87 x 117 cm framed
Signed lower left
The sunlight catches a crashing wave, shining through it, as seabirds glide beneath a powerfully beautiful sunset. The sea was the main subject of many of Kalckreuth paintings and he dedicated his life to its observation and depiction.
The son of a German naval officer, he had a brief career as a seaman after which he enrolled in the Prussian Academy of Arts, Berlin and studied with the German painter Hugo Schnars-Alquist. Living in both Düsseldorf and Berlin, he frequently spent summers in Cuxheaven on the North Sea, which is likely the location of this painting. Kalckreuth's early work primarily focused on ships at sea, heavily influenced by Schnars-Alquist, but later in his career, the sea itself becomes the protagonist. After his father's death, his mother married Richard von Kalckreuth, who adopted him despite his age, almost forty, and as a result Partrick took his stepfathers surname. Thus, early works of Kalckreuth are signed as Patrick Dunbar, as this one is, placing the date of this painting to pre-1931. Considered a master maritime painter, his paintings are displayed in several museums and galleries in Hamburg and in the North of Germany, including the Historiches Museum in Bremerhaven.
