Der Marinemaler Eduard Edler (1887-1969): eine biographische Annäherung

Abstract

Eduard Edler's life and work have not been closely examined to date. Since documents and reports by his contemporaries can scarcely be found, only a biographical rapprochement can be undertaken. Paintings from Edler's studio keep turning up in the art trade unaccompanied by any information on their production. At present, the following is known about him: Edler first made a name for himself during the 1930s as a ship portraitist and poster-painter in the service of German shipping companies. It was in those years - preceding the Second World War - that he scored his greatest successes. During the 1940s, when the one-hundredth anniversary of Hapag, Germany's largest shipping company was approaching in 1947, Edler received a major order. He was asked to do portraits of all the ships that had sailed under the flag of Hapag since 1847 and never been illustrated or photographed. Pictures of sister-ships or shipyard drawings were made available to him as bases to work from. He even painted ships which had been under construction in 1944 and 1945 and never been delivered to the Hamburg shipping company due to the outcome of the war, depicting them sailing the high seas under the Hapag flag. This order, however, explains why the largest single collection of his paintings is today owned by the Hapag-Lloyd AG. The exact number of ship portraits Edler painted is unknown, since a catalogue of his works does not exist. The planned transfer of his estate to the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte, as fixed in his will, never came about. The documentary value of the paintings has to be examined from case to case, for Edler also had the gift of portraying ships about whose appearance he knew little, or next to nothing. After World War II he seems to have become less productive. The paintings located so far are primarily rendered in tempera rather than in oils. As far as his artistic abilities are concerned, it must be said that they are inferior to those of contemporaries who also worked as ship portraitists, such as Robert Schmidt-Hamburg or Walter Zeeden.