Antonio Jacobsen
1850-1921
Antonio Jacobsen (also known as Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen) was Danish-born American marine painter. He became America’s folk art hero recognized for his unsurpassed contributions to America’s maritime history. He was a prolific painter and throughout his life it is believed that he painted some 6000 paintings.
Jacobsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, where for generations his family had been violin makers. His father encouraged him to practice a similar craft and at an early age he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Design in Copenhagen.
He immigrated to New York in 1871 to avoid serving in the Franco-Prussian War and got a job decorating safes. His ability as an artist was further recognized as he began to receive commissions from sea captains and ship owners, and eventually Steamship companies, to record their entire fleet. The notoriety that Jacobsen received from all these commissions helped establish him as the foremost chronicler of American shipping in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
From 1880, he lived in Hoboken, New Jersey, having studied at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen. At that time, he began painting portraits of the vessels of the Old Dominion Steamship Line, creating about 6000 ship portraits in the New York Harbor.
Critics of Jacobsen’s style cite a lack of variety in his work, although, one can see not just broadsides of ships at sea, but some examples of perspective as well. In addition harbor backgrounds, a shipwreck scene, steamships with auxiliary sails and hulls of different colors can be found.
Jacobsen seemed to have known that he would never be a good artist without ships to use as models – and the port of New York would never lack for models. In this fertile ground he had his chance to become the good marine artist that he was.” Jacobsen died in Newark, New Jersey in 1921.
