Carl Rodeck


Carl Rodeck was a German landscape, marine and portrait painter.

Life

His father was a lithographer and, in 1842, his family moved to Hamburg to open their own shop. From 1863 to 1866, he studied under Arnold Böcklin, Ferdinand Pauwels and Alexander Michelis at the Weimar Saxon Grand Ducal Art School. After a brief return to Hamburg in 1869, prompted by his father's illness, he went to Berlin for further studies then, in 1871, went back to Hamburg, where he took up permanent residence. After his father's death he closed the shop and devoted himself entirely to painting.
He quickly found the themes for his works; mainly oil paintings or watercolors. He portrayed the German forest, the landscape of the Lower Elbe and the old harbor neighborhood of Hamburg and was constantly on the road with a sketch pad or easel. In 1869 the had been his first customer, and continued to buy his works throughout the 1870s. He was represented in all the major exhibitions, including Hamburg and Hanover, and later in Berlin, Dresden and Munich. He also exhibited in Vienna and London. In later years, he became increasingly interested in portrait painting.
Study trips took him to Norway. Together with his friend Carl Oesterley he visited the Netherlands, Belgium and England, where he had relatives by marriage. As a further source of income he gave private lessons in drawing and painting for young women from Hamburg's upper classes. His students included the sisters Molly Cramer and Helene Cramer, as well as his later wife Maria Hastedt whom he married in 1888.
In 1907, after several strokes, he had to give up painting. On 14 April 1909 he died, his corpse was cremated, and the urn was placed at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery.

Selected works