! Year !! Title !! Medium !! Dimensions !! Signature || Provenance / Notes
! Year !! Title !! Medium !! Dimensions !! Signature || Provenance / Notes
|-
|-
| 1876 || ”Clipper Ship off a Point” || Oil on canvas || 30.5 X 45.5 cm (12 X 18 in) framed || Signed, dated || Sold by Eldred’s (East Dennis, MA), 2007. Private collection.
| 1876 || ”Clipper Ship off a Point” || Oil on canvas || 30.5 45.5 cm (12 18 in) framed || Signed, dated || Sold by Eldred’s (East Dennis, MA), 2007. Private collection.
|-
|-
| — || ”Ships in light swell, Kronborg Castle in the background” || Oil on canvas || 51 X 76.2 cm (20 X 30 in) || Signed || Sold by Koller (Switzerland), 2025. Private collection.
| — || ”Ships in light swell, Kronborg Castle in the background” || Oil on canvas || 51 76.2 cm (20 30 in) || Signed || Sold by Koller (Switzerland), 2025. Private collection.
|-
|-
| 1889 || ”The Clipper Melanope” || Oil on canvas || 48 X 91 cm (19 x 36 in) || Signed, dated || Sold by Adam’s (Dublin), 2024. Private collection.
| 1889 || ”The Clipper Melanope” || Oil on canvas || 48 91 cm (19 36 in) || Signed, dated || Sold by Adam’s (Dublin), 2024. Private collection.
|-
|-
| 1890 || ”Rosalind (American Schooner)” || Oil || 51 X 90 cm (20 X 35.5 in) || Signed, dated || Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA), acquired 1964.
| 1890 || ”Rosalind (American Schooner)” || Oil || 51 90 cm (20 35.5 in) || Signed, dated || Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA), acquired 1964.
|-
|-
| — || Untitled – two merchantmen, a steamer and a pilot || Oil || 54 X 75 cm (21.25 X 29.5 in) || Unsigned || Sold by Sarasota Estate Auction (Sarasota, FL), 2024. Lot 950, #2689. The merchantmen and the three-manned pilot closely resemble those of ”Ships in light swell, Kronborg Castle in the background”. Private collection.
| — || Untitled – two merchantmen, a steamer and a pilot || Oil || 54 75 cm (21.25 29.5 in) || Unsigned || Sold by Sarasota Estate Auction (Sarasota, FL), 2024. Lot 950, #2689. The merchantmen and the three-manned pilot closely resemble those of ”Ships in light swell, Kronborg Castle in the background”. Private collection.
|-
|-
| 1890 || Untitled – sloop with poop deck under sail || Oil || 75 X 27 cm (29.5 X 10.75 in) || Signed, dated || Sold by Sarasota Estate Auction, 2024. Lot 950, #2698. Private collection.
| 1890 || Untitled – sloop with poop deck under sail || Oil || 75 27 cm (29.5 10.75 in) || Signed, dated || Sold by Sarasota Estate Auction, 2024. Lot 950, #2698. Private collection.
|-
|-
| c. 1890 || ”Schooner Approaching a Harbour” || Oil || 55.9 x 91.4 cm (22 x 36 in.) || — || Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner in 1975: Quentin M. Thompson, San Francisco.
| c. 1890 || ”Schooner Approaching a Harbour” || Oil || 55.9 91.4 cm (22 36 in.) || — || Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner in 1975: Quentin M. Thompson, San Francisco.
|-
|-
| 1891 || ”Running Before a Squall off Cape Horn” || Oil || — || — || Mechanics’ Institute, 1891. Current location unknown.
| 1891 || ”Running Before a Squall off Cape Horn” || Oil || — || — || Mechanics’ Institute, 1891. Current location unknown.
|-
|-
| 1895 || ”Ella Rhollfs Steaming off San Francisco” || Oil on canvas || 71.1 X 102 cm (28 X 40 in) || Signed, dated || Sold by Bonhams (Los Angeles), 2019. Inscribed “S. Francisco” beneath signature. Private collection.
| 1895 || ”Ella Rhollfs Steaming off San Francisco” || Oil on canvas || 71.1 102 cm (28 40 in) || Signed, dated || Sold by Bonhams (Los Angeles), 2019. Inscribed “S. Francisco” beneath signature. Private collection.
|-
|-
| 1896 || ”Caught in a Gale” || Oil on canvas || 76.2 X 127 cm (30 X 50 in) || Signed, dated || Sold by Christie’s (New York), 2005. Private collection.
| 1896 || ”Caught in a Gale” || Oil on canvas || 76.2 127 cm (30 50 in) || Signed, dated || Sold by Christie’s (New York), 2005. Private collection.
|-
|-
| 1896 || ”Fifty Years Ago” || Oil || — || — || Mechanics’ Institute, 1896. Current location unknown.
| 1896 || ”Fifty Years Ago” || Oil || — || — || Mechanics’ Institute, 1896. Current location unknown.
| 1896 || ”Marine” || Oil || — || — || Mechanics’ Institute, 1896. Current location unknown.
| 1896 || ”Marine” || Oil || — || — || Mechanics’ Institute, 1896. Current location unknown.
|-
|-
| 1896 || ”Ships in San Francisco Bay” || Oil || 25.4 X 35.6 cm (10 x 14 in) || — || Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner in 1975: William J. Olsen, San Rafael, California.
| 1896 || ”Ships in San Francisco Bay” || Oil || 25.4 35.6 cm (10 14 in) || — || Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner in 1975: William J. Olsen, San Rafael, California.
|-
|-
| 1897 || ”Portrait” || Oil || — || — || Mechanics’ Institute, 1897; owner in 1897: Mrs. A. P. Matson. <ref group=note>Per the 1897 city directories, Dietz’s business address was identical to that of “MATSON ANDREW P., dentist 1769 Howard”</ref>Current location unknown.
| 1897 || ”Portrait” || Oil || — || — || Mechanics’ Institute, 1897; owner in 1897: Mrs. A. P. Matson. <ref group=note>Per the 1897 city directories, Dietz’s business address was identical to that of “MATSON ANDREW P., dentist 1769 Howard”</ref>Current location unknown.
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American artist
Herman Richard Kissner Dietz (June 24, 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.[1]
Dietz was born in Reval (modern Tallinn), in the Russian Empire, on June 24, 1860, to a German father and a Russian mother. He declared his native language to be Russian. He received drawing lessons from his uncle, Konstantin Nielander, a Reval guildsman who attended the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.
Dietz stated that he spent some years seafaring from an early age. Art historians have generally accepted his claims to have emigrated to England in 1876, 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 during this early phase of his travels.
In 1888, Dietz married Theresa Gidman, an English woman, with whom he would father three daughters over the following decade.
In 1889, Dietz settled in San Francisco, California. He maintained a studio there and exhibited his work at the Mechanics’ Institute between 1891 and 1899. 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.[2]
By 1900, the family was living in Santa Cruz, although he may have retained a business address in the city. Dietz was a member of the San Francisco Art Association. 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. After the earthquake, he disappeared from the San Francisco art scene, and his subsequent known addresses were slightly inland. 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.[3]
By 1920, they had settled in Healdsburg, Sonoma County. Dietz described himself as an “artist teacher” in that year’s census. Dietz died there on November 10, 1923.
Dietz himself and most art historians have classified him as a marine painter. E. H. H. Archibald narrowed this designation to “ship portraitist”, reflecting the number of identifiable vessels among his detailed works. 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. The Mechanics’ Institute paintings may have been among those lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.
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, not a clipper. 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. The latter 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 1876 painting may have been a preparatory study for the latter.
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. The vessel was later active on San Francisco trade routes. 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.
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 (see List of shipwrecks in 1897).[4]
His 1895 painting of the 76-foot steamship Ella Rohlffs Steaming off San Francisco, built in San Francisco in 1889 and named after the daughter of a prominent San Francisco ship-owning merchant, 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.[5]
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.[6] Eight works by Dietz were recorded in the Smithsonian Institution’s Bicentennial Inventory of American Paintings Executed before 1914[7], which listed paintings without judgment as to their merit, significance, or worth.[8] His Rosalind (1890) is held by the Peabody Essex Museum, while The Caspar (c. 1890) is part of the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.[9] His 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 January 1986 issue of The Magazine Antiques (p. 125). 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.
| 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 | Sold by Eldred’s (East Dennis, MA), 2007. Private collection. |
| — | Ships in light swell, Kronborg Castle in the background | Oil on canvas | 51 × 76.2 cm (20 × 30 in) | Signed | Sold by Koller (Switzerland), 2025. Private collection. |
| 1889 | The Clipper Melanope | Oil on canvas | 48 × 91 cm (19 × 36 in) | Signed, dated | Sold by Adam’s (Dublin), 2024. Private collection. |
| 1890 | Rosalind (American Schooner) | Oil | 51 × 90 cm (20 × 35.5 in) | Signed, dated | Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA), acquired 1964. |
| — | Untitled – two merchantmen, a steamer and a pilot | Oil | 54 × 75 cm (21.25 × 29.5 in) | Unsigned | Sold by Sarasota Estate Auction (Sarasota, FL), 2024. Lot 950, #2689. The merchantmen and the three-manned pilot closely resemble those of Ships in light swell, Kronborg Castle in the background. Private collection. |
| 1890 | Untitled – sloop with poop deck under sail | Oil | 75 × 27 cm (29.5 × 10.75 in) | Signed, dated | Sold by Sarasota Estate Auction, 2024. Lot 950, #2698. Private collection. |
| c. 1890 | Schooner Approaching a Harbour | Oil | 55.9 × 91.4 cm (22 × 36 in.) | — | Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner in 1975: Quentin M. Thompson, San Francisco. |
| 1891 | Running Before a Squall off Cape Horn | Oil | — | — | Mechanics’ Institute, 1891. Current location unknown. |
| 1895 | Ella Rhollfs Steaming off San Francisco | Oil on canvas | 71.1 × 102 cm (28 × 40 in) | Signed, dated | Sold by Bonhams (Los Angeles), 2019. Inscribed “S. Francisco” beneath signature. Private collection. |
| 1896 | Caught in a Gale | Oil on canvas | 76.2 × 127 cm (30 × 50 in) | Signed, dated | Sold by Christie’s (New York), 2005. Private collection. |
| 1896 | Fifty Years Ago | Oil | — | — | Mechanics’ Institute, 1896. Current location unknown. |
| 1896 | Marine | Oil | — | — | Mechanics’ Institute, 1896. Current location unknown. |
| 1896 | Ships in San Francisco Bay | Oil | 25.4 × 35.6 cm (10 × 14 in) | — | Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner in 1975: William J. Olsen, San Rafael, California. |
| 1897 | Portrait | Oil | — | — | Mechanics’ Institute, 1897; owner in 1897: Mrs. A. P. Matson. [note 2]Current location unknown. |
| 1897 | Cliff House | Oil | — | — | Mechanics’ Institute, 1897; owner in 1897: Mrs. A. P. Matson. Current location unknown. |
| 1897 | Sunrise After a Storm | Oil | — | — | Mechanics’ Institute, 1897. Current location unknown. |
| 1897 | A Sunny Morning on the Bay | Oil | — | — | Mechanics’ Institute, 1897; owner in 1897: Mrs. A. P. Matson. Current location unknown. |
| Year | Title | Provenance / Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1899 | Marine | Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner: Alfred B. Olsen, Corte Madera, California |
| c. 1900 | Still Life | Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner: William J. Olsen, San Rafael, California |
| 1903 | Ship on a Stormy Sea | Sold by Bonhams Skinner (Marlborough), 2022; oil on board |
| 1912 | Untitled seascape | Sold by Voorhees Craftsmen (Pasadena) |
| — | The Caspar | Held by San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park |
| — | The San Diego | Formerly at de Young Museum; deaccessioned 1976 |
| — | Caught in a Gale | Sold by Christie’s (New York), 2008; oil on board; distinct from 1896 canvas |
| — | Sailboat on San Francisco Bay, Yacht Minnie | Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner: Society of California Pioneers, San Francisco |
| — | Yosemite Valley | Recorded in Smithsonian Bicentennial Inventory; owner: Mr. & Mrs. Svend B. Ruhne, Santa Cruz, California |
- Adam’s, At Home, August 28, 2024, Dublin, Ireland, Lot 21
- Bonhams, California and Western Art, November 25 – 26, 2019, Los Angeles, Lot 128
- Bonhams Skinner, Americana Online, November 11 – 21, 2022, Marlborough, MA, Lot 1309
- Christie’s, Maritime Art Including Fine Paintings, Nautical Antiques, Scrimshaw and Ship Models, January 30, 2008, New York, Lot 263
- Christie’s, Maritime Including Medical and Scientific Instruments, February 3, 2005, New York, Lot 219
- Eldred’s, auction, March 30, 2007, East Dennis, MA (lot number not listed; source: Invaluable.com)
- Koller, 19th Century Paintings, September 24, 2025, online, Switzerland, Lot 6213
- McGrath Auctions, auction, March 5, 2016, Sebastopol, California, Lot 10 (untitled landscape)
- Sarasota Estate Auction, Important Fine Art, Jewellery, Antiques and Silver Auction, August 2024 25, Sarasota, Florida, Lot 950, items #2689 and #2698
- ^
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 other destructive events in private collections. Canvas sizes, generally provided by auction houses, may be of variable precision. - ^ Per the 1897 city directories, Dietz’s business address was identical to that of “MATSON ANDREW P., dentist 1769 Howard”
- ^
- The Bay of San Francisco: The Metropolis of the Pacific Coast and Its Suburban Cities, 2nd ed., The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, 1898. Entry for Dietz listed on Contents page V as: “Dietz, H. R.: Vol. II, page 390.”
- Artists in California, 1786 – 1940, Edan Milton Hughes, Hughes Publishing Company, California, 1986, p. 129. Entry for “H. R. Dietz.” Cites The Bay of San Francisco, Vol. II, p. 390.
- Artists in California, 1786 – 1940, 2nd ed., Edan Milton Hughes, Hughes Publishing Company, California, 1989, p. 149. Updates name to “Herman R. Dietz,” notes his San Francisco activity until the 1906 earthquake, when many of his works were lost, adds county of death, and includes city directories in citations.
- Who Was Who in American Art: Biographies of American Artists Active from 1564 – 1975, Vol. I, Peter Hastings Falk, ed.-in-chief, Sound View Press, Connecticut, 1999, p. 917. Reproduces the information found in Hughes (1989), including Dietz’s emigration to England, but omits his stated reasons for leaving Russia. The entry cites Hughes as its sole source.
- Jacobsen’s Biographical Index of American Artists, Vol. I, Anita Jacobsen, A. J. Publications, Texas, 2002, p. 876. Entry for “Dietz, Herman R.” presents the same biographical details as Hughes (1989). Cites The Bay of San Francisco, city directories, Harvard University, and the National Museum of American Art.
- Artists in California, 1786 – 1940, 3rd ed., Vol. I, Edan Milton Hughes, Crocker Art Museum, California, 2002, p. 308. Gives Dietz’s full name including “Kissner” (which Dietz used in his 1909 marriage and in signing later works), full birthdate, town of death, expands his Mechanics’ Institute exhibiting history, adds his 1906 SFAA showing, and adds death record to his citations.
- ^ Dietz’s changing San Francisco addresses throughout the 1890s are documented in:
- Langley’s San Francisco Directory (1891, 1892, 1893, 1894),
- California State Gazetteer and Business Directory (R. L. Polk & Co., 1893),
- Crocker-Langley San Francisco Directory (1896, 1897, 1898),
- Mark Hopkins Institute artist lists (1903, 1904).
- ^ U.S. Consul-General’s Register of American Citizens, Sydney, 1911. NARA microfilm publication M259, National Archives.
- ^ Nancy Friedman, California: The Spirit of America, 1999; reproduction of painting from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.
- ^ Bonhams Auction Catalogue, Lot 128, Sale 25298, Los Angeles, 2019.
- ^ {{cite web
|title=Artists Represented in Farrington Jones Archive
|url=https://cinco-prd.s3.amazonaws.com/media/pdf/Artists_Represented_in_Farrington_Jones_Archive.pdf
|website=Crocker Art Museum
|publisher=Crocker Art Museum
|format=PDF
|access-date=26 September 2025}} - ^ “Art Inventories Catalog – Search: Dietz”. Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS). Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 28 September 2025.
- ^ “Guidelines for the Bicentennial Inventory of American Paintings” (PDF). Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2025-07-18.
No painting, no matter how minor or obscure, should be omitted because it is thought to be unimportant or unworthy of inclusion.
- ^ Friedman, Nancy (1999). California: The Spirit of America. Friedman/Fairfax. p. 48.
- Brewington, M. V., and Dorothy Brewington, Marine Paintings and Drawings in the Peabody Museum, 1981.
