Draft:Herman Richard Kissner Dietz: Difference between revisions

 

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<ref>”Report of the New York Produce Exchange from July 1, 1885, to July 1, 1886” (New York: Press of De Leeuw, Oppenheimer & Myers, 1896), p. 11 (as the next page is numbered 12): “Committee Appointed by the President, July 29, 1885, to represent the Exchange at the funeral of General U. S. Grant: Levi G. Burgess.”</ref> The vessel had entered San Francisco trade routes in that year. The canvas is a broadside portrait under full sail in a heavy swell beneath bright clouds, flags flying, another vessel, and some landforms on the horizon.

<ref>”Report of the New York Produce Exchange from July 1, 1885, to July 1, 1886” (New York: Press of De Leeuw, Oppenheimer & Myers, 1896), p. 11 (as the next page is numbered 12): “Committee Appointed by the President, July 29, 1885, to represent the Exchange at the funeral of General U. S. Grant: Levi G. Burgess.”</ref> The vessel had entered San Francisco trade routes in that year. The canvas is a broadside portrait under full sail in a heavy swell beneath bright clouds, flags flying, another vessel, and some landforms on the horizon.

The 1889 painting ”The Clipper Melanope” depicts the 258-foot iron-hulled clipper, built in Liverpool in 1876, under shortened sail, illuminated by light breaking through stormy clouds and holding steady amid breaking seas, with waves rendered in a palette of Prussian blue and paler cerulean blue tones, their crests picked out in white, as a steam-powered pilot boat heels sharply to port on its approach from astern. The ship’s turbulent history, ending with her reduction to a World War II coal barge, is frequently noted in maritime histories.<ref name=Adams2024″/><ref>{{cite book

The 1889 painting ”The Clipper Melanope” depicts the 258-foot iron-hulled clipper, built in Liverpool in 1876, under shortened sail, illuminated by light breaking through stormy clouds and holding steady amid breaking seas, with waves rendered in a palette of Prussian blue and paler cerulean blue tones, their crests picked out in white, as a steam-powered pilot boat heels sharply to port on its approach from astern. The ship’s turbulent history, ending with her reduction to a World War II coal barge, is frequently noted in maritime histories.<ref name=Adams2024″/><ref>{{cite book

|title=Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping

|title=Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping

|volume=1877

|volume=1877

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American artist

Herman Richard Kissner Dietz (June 13, 1860 – November 10, 1923) was a Russian-born American marine painter active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known for paintings of ships, seascapes, and coastal scenes, particularly along the West Coast of the United States.

Most of Dietz’s professional life prior to 1898 has been drawn from his entry in the second edition of The Bay of San Francisco (1898), where the subjects paid the publisher to include their own biographical details. Many of these details have been cited by art historians and incorporated into his biography.
^{[note 1]
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Dietz was born in Reval (modern Tallinn), in the Russian Empire, on June 13, 1860, into a Lutheran Baltic-German family; his father, Gustav Adolph Dietz, was a clerk in the Governor’s Office and, later, a photographer, and his mother was Katherine Marie (née Kissner). In official documents, Dietz usually described his father as German, his mother as Russian, and his native language as Russian.^[8][9]
[10] He received drawing lessons from his “uncle”, Konstantin Nielander, a Reval guildsman who attended the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.^{[note 2]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
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Dietz stated that he spent some years seafaring from an early age and then emigrated to England in 1876. Art historians have generally accepted his claims to have emigrated first to England and subsequently to Queensland, Australia, from where he participated in an expedition to New Guinea. Dietz also stated that he spent time in the southern United States after his initial emigration to England, and that he returned to England both after this time in America and again after his Australian journey.^[2][3]

In 1887, in Liverpool, Dietz married Mary Theresa Gidman, an English woman, with whom he would father three daughters over the following decade.^[16][17] In the marriage register, Dietz’s profession is recorded as “mariner”.

In 1889, Dietz settled in San Francisco, California, and was naturalised there in 1896.^[18] He maintained a studio there and exhibited his work at the Mechanics’ Institute between 1891 and 1899.^[7] Throughout the 1890s, Dietz frequently changed his studio address and occasionally supplemented his income by teaching or, in one year, working as a clerk for the Harbor Commissioners.
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By 1900, the family was living in Santa Cruz, although he may have retained a business address in the city.^[17][23] Dietz was a member of the San Francisco Art Association.^[23][24] His work is known to have been displayed in its 1906 exhibition. Many of his earlier works were lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.^[4] After the earthquake, he disappeared from the San Francisco art scene, and his subsequent known addresses were slightly inland.^{[note 3]
[25]} Dietz divorced Theresa during this decade and, in 1909, remarried to Anna M. Brodersen, a Danish-born immigrant. In 1911, the couple spent three months in Australia.^{[26][27][18][28]}

By 1920, they had settled in Healdsburg, Sonoma County. Dietz described himself as an “artist teacher” in that year’s census.^[10] Dietz died there on November 10, 1923.^[7]

Dietz himself and most art historians have classified him as a marine painter.^[3][5][6] E. H. H. Archibald narrowed this designation to “ship portraitist”, reflecting the number of identifiable vessels among his detailed works.^[29] Not all of his paintings were ship portraits. Of the works he exhibited at the San Francisco Mechanics’ Institute in 1891, 1896, and 1897, listed in the Known Paintings table below, none are titled after specific vessels, and many other works likewise lack specific ship names.^[30][31][32] The Mechanics’ Institute paintings may have been among those lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.^[7]

Dietz worked primarily in oil on canvas, rendering sail plans and running rigging with technical fidelity: square sails; gaffs and the spanker; staysails and jibs; and halyards, sheets and braces. The set and trim recorded in these details show how the vessel was being worked for the prevailing wind and sea at the moment depicted. The selected canvases below, dated 1876 to 1895, illustrate this approach across varied sea states and settings. He often painted lively seas with detailed waves, and he frequently included small motifs, such as a piece of flotsam in both Ella Rohlffs and Levi G. Burgess, a scattering of seagulls in The Clipper Melanope, or a leaping salmon in The Caspar.

Among his earliest surviving signed works is Clipper Ship off a Point (1876), a small painting of a ship whose masts, rigging and hull shape, flying under a Danish ensign, indicate a brig rather than a clipper.^[33] The turreted building in the background is identical in structure, angle and setting to the castle in the undated work Ships in a Light Swell, Kronborg Castle in the Background.^[34]

The Kronborg composition expands the motif, introducing a Norwegian cutter, a three-manned pilot boat, a Danish screw frigate, and United States and Dutch merchant ships navigating the waters off Kronborg Castle. The pilot boat seen in this painting reappears in an unsigned painting formerly sold by Sarasota Estate Auctions.^[35] The near-duplication of line and proportion suggests that Dietz may have been working from his own preparatory drawing, while variations in brushwork and palette indicate that he reinterpreted the motif rather than mechanically copying it.

Dietz’s painting of the 218-foot wooden-hulled clipper Levi G. Burgess, built in Maine in 1877 and named for a New York mercantile figure, is dated to about 1887.^{[36]
[37]
[38]} The vessel had entered San Francisco trade routes in that year. The canvas is a broadside portrait under full sail in a heavy swell beneath bright clouds, flags flying, another vessel, and some landforms on the horizon.

The 1889 painting The Clipper Melanope depicts the 258-foot iron-hulled clipper, built in Liverpool in 1876, under shortened sail, illuminated by light breaking through stormy clouds and holding steady amid breaking seas, with waves rendered in a palette of Prussian blue and paler cerulean blue tones, their crests picked out in white, as a steam-powered pilot boat heels sharply to port on its approach from astern. The ship’s turbulent history, ending with her reduction to a World War II coal barge, is frequently noted in maritime histories.^[39][40]

His 1890 work The Caspar depicts the lumber steam schooner under sail in choppy seas, shown broadside, smoke trailing aft from the stack, fore-and-aft sails set and trimmed close, flags flying, set against a backdrop of headland and cumulus clouds. The vessel later wrecked off northern California in 1897).^[41][42]

His 1895 painting of the 76-foot steamship Ella Rohlffs Steaming off San Francisco, built in San Francisco in 1889 and used by the Arctic Packing Company, whose president, C. C. Rohlffs, named the vessel for his daughter, depicts a small steamship with sails furled and smoke streaming forward from the stack, indicating a tailwind. Three crewmen are visible on deck, emphasising its modest scale. Astern, the San Francisco Bar Pilot schooner Lady Mine follows under sail, while the background includes recognisable features of the San Francisco Bay entrance.^{[note 4]
[43]
[44]
[45]
[46]
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Dietz’s paintings continue to surface at auction. Most remain in private collections. In the Crocker Art Museum, he is represented in the Nan and Roy Farrington Jones Archive of Early California and Western Art.^[48] Eight works by Dietz were recorded in the Smithsonian Institution’s Bicentennial Inventory of American Paintings Executed before 1914^[49], which listed paintings without judgment as to their merit, significance, or worth.^[50] Rosalind is held by the Peabody Essex Museum. The Caspar is in the collection of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.^[41] Levi G. Burgess was a featured exhibit in the Montgomery Gallery’s 1986 exhibition Maritime Paintings and Maritime Artifacts, and was the only work reproduced in the gallery’s full-page advertisement in The Magazine Antiques.^[36] He has also been the subject of entries by respected art historians including Edan Hughes, Anita Jacobsen, Peter Hastings Falk, E. H. H. Archibald and M. V. and Dorothy Brewington.

This table lists all currently known works by Dietz. Additional works may surface through auctions or museum cataloguing. Titles in auction catalogues are sometimes altered, so duplicate entries cannot be entirely ruled out. Some works may no longer survive, having been lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, through museum deaccessioning, or destructive incidents in private collections. Canvas sizes, generally provided by auction houses, may be of variable precision; inch fractions have been converted to decimals.

Year	Title	Medium	Dimensions	Signature	Provenance / Notes
1876	Clipper Ship off a Point	Oil on canvas	30.5 × 45.5 cm 12 × 18 in framed	Signed, dated	Private collection. Sold by Eldred’s (East Dennis, MA), 2007.[33]
—	Ships in light swell, Kronborg Castle in the background	Oil on canvas	51 × 76.2 cm 20 × 30 in	Signed	Private collection. Sold by Koller (Switzerland), 2025.[34]
c. 1887	Levi G. Burgess	Oil on canvas	61 × 91 cm 24 × 36 in	—	Private collection. Exhibited by Montgomery Gallery, San Francisco, CA in 1986. Reproduced in The Magazine Antiques.[36]
1889	The Clipper Melanope	Oil on canvas	48 × 91 cm 19 × 36 in	Signed, dated	Private collection. Sold by Adam’s (Dublin), 2024.[39]
1890	Rosalind (American Schooner)	Oil	51 × 90 cm 20 × 35.5 in	Signed, dated	Held by Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA), acquired 1964. Reproduced in Brewington.[51]
—	Untitled – two merchantmen, a steamer and a pilot	Oil	54 × 75 cm 21.25 × 29.5 in	Unsigned	Private collection. Sold by Sarasota Estate Auction (Sarasota, FL), 2024. Lot 950, #2689.[35] The merchantmen and the three-manned pilot closely resemble those of Ships in light swell, Kronborg Castle in the background.
1890	Untitled – sloop with poop deck under sail	Oil	75 × 27 cm 29.5 × 10.75 in	Signed, dated	Private collection. Sold by Sarasota Estate Auction, 2024. Lot 950, #2698.[35]
c. 1890	Schooner Approaching a Harbour	Oil	55.9 × 91.4 cm 22 × 36 in	—	Private collection. Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner in 1975: Quentin M. Thompson, San Francisco.[49]
c. 1890	The Caspar	Oil on canvas	55 × 90 cm 22 × 35 in	Signed	Held by San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, San Francisco, CA. Reproduced in Friedman.[41]
1891	Running Before a Squall off Cape Horn	Oil	—	—	Current location unknown. Mechanics’ Institute, 1891.[30]
1895	Ella Rohlffs Steaming off San Francisco	Oil on canvas	71.1 × 102 cm 28 × 40 in	Signed, dated	Private collection. Sold by Bonhams (Los Angeles), 2019. Inscribed “S. Francisco” beneath signature.[43]
1896	Caught in a Gale	Oil on canvas	76.2 × 127 cm 30 × 50 in	Signed, dated	Private collection. Sold by Christie’s (New York), 2005.[52]
1896	Fifty Years Ago	Oil	—	—	Current location unknown. Mechanics’ Institute, 1896.[31]
1896	Marine	Oil	—	—	Current location unknown. Mechanics’ Institute, 1896.
1896	Ships in San Francisco Bay	Oil	25.4 × 35.6 cm 10 × 14 in	—	Private collection. Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner in 1975: William J. Olsen, San Rafael, California.
1897	Portrait	Oil	—	—	Current location unknown. Mechanics’ Institute, 1897.[32] Owner in 1897: Mrs. A. P. Matson. [note 5][21]
1897	Cliff House	Oil	—	—	Current location unknown. Mechanics’ Institute, 1897; owner in 1897: Mrs. A. P. Matson.
1897	Sunrise After a Storm	Oil	—	—	Current location unknown. Mechanics’ Institute, 1897.
1897	A Sunny Morning on the Bay	Oil	—	—	Current location unknown. Mechanics’ Institute, 1897; owner in 1897: Mrs. A. P. Matson.
1899	Marine	Oil	48.3 × 76.2 cm 19 × 30 in	—	Private collection. Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner in 1975: Alfred B. Olsen, Corte Madera, California.
c. 1900	Still Life	Oil	61.0 × 96.5 cm 24 × 38 in	—	Private collection. Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner in 1975: William J. Olsen, San Rafael, California.
1903	Ship on a Stormy Sea	Oil on canvas	51.5 × 76 cm 20.25 × 30 in	—	Private collection. Sold by Bonhams Skinner (Marlborough), 2022; oil on board.[53]
1912	Untitled – seascape with 3-masted ship	Oil	80 × 50 cm 31.5 × 19.5 in	Signed, dated	Private collection. Sold by Voorhees Craftsmen (Pasadena, CA), ID: #6602. Source: voorheescraftsman.com. Signed “H. R. Kissner Dietz”.
—	Caught in a Gale	Oil on board	33 × 46.4 cm 13 × 18.25 in	Signed	Private collection. Sold by Christie’s (New York), 2008; distinct from 1896 canvas.[54]
—	Sailboat on San Francisco Bay, Yacht Minnie	Oil	—	—	Held by Society of California Pioneers, San Francisco, CA. Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory.
—	Sailing Ships Entering the Harbor	Oil on canvas	76.2 × 127.6 cm 30 × 50.25 in	Signed	Private collection. Sold by Butterfield’s (San Francisco), 2000.[55]
—	The San Diego	Oil	—	—	Formerly held by M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA; listed for deaccessioning (first steps) 1976.[56] Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory.
—	Untitled – landscape with rolling hills	—	50.8 × 35 cm 20 × 13.75 in	Signed	Private collection. Sold by McGrath Auctions (Sebastopol), 2016. Signed “H. R. Kissner Dietz”.[57]
—	Yosemite Valley	—	68.6 × 94 cm 27 × 37 in	—	Private collection. Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner in 1975: Mr. & Mrs. Svend B. Ruhne, Santa Cruz, CA (re-confirmed 1989).

• Adam’s, At Home, August 28, 2024, Dublin, Ireland, Lot 21
• Bonhams, California and Western Art, November 25 – 26, 2019, Los Angeles, CA, Lot 128
• Bonhams Skinner, Americana Online, November 11 – 21, 2022, Marlborough, MA, Lot 1309
• Butterfield’s, American & California Art Paintings and Sculpture, December 13, 2000, San Francisco, CA, Lot 3045 (souce: Artnet.com)
• Christie’s, Maritime Art Including Fine Paintings, Nautical Antiques, Scrimshaw and Ship Models, January 30, 2008, New York, NY, Lot 263
• Christie’s, Maritime Including Medical and Scientific Instruments, February 3, 2005, New York, NY, Lot 219
• Eldred’s, auction, March 30, 2007, East Dennis, MA, Lot 357 (source: Invaluable.com)
• Koller, 19th Century Paintings, September 24, 2025, online, Switzerland, Lot 6213
• McGrath Auctions, auction, March 5, 2016, Sebastopol, CA, Lot 10 (source: Invaluable.com)
• Sarasota Estate Auction, Important Fine Art, Jewellery, Antiques and Silver Auction, August 25, 2024, Sarasota, FL, Lot 950, items #2689 and #2698