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Claus Bergen

Claus Bergen
Bw portrait Claus Bergen painter.jpg
Claus Bergen, circa 1915
Born April 18, 1885
Stuttgart, Germany
Died October 4, 1964(1964-10-04) (aged 79)
Lenggries, Bavaria
Nationality German
Occupation Illustrator, marine and landscape painter

Claus Friedrich Bergen (April 18, 1885–October 4, 1964) was a German illustrator and painter, best known for his depictions of naval warfare in World War One.

Bergen was born April 18, 1885, in Stuttgart, Germany, the first son of Fritz Bergen, a popular painter and illustrator of the imperial era. He was raised in Munich, where, starting in 1904, he attended Moritz Weinhold's painting school and the Royal Academy of Fine Art, studying under Carl von Marr.

Beginning in 1907, Bergen created more than 450 illustrations for Karl May's popular adventure tales. Continually printed and re-printed in books and periodicals, Bergen's depictions of the Old West, India, Arabia, and other exotic locales came to be widely associated with May's stories. In 1910 his illustrations were exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Brussels.

He travelled extensively, visiting Norway, England, the Mediterranean and America while exhibiting and furthering his training. He developed a specialty of painting naval subjects, as well as fishing scenes and coastal views. A series of paintings of the Cornish fishing village of Polperro attracted particular attention.

In 1914 Bergen was appointed Marine Painter to Kaiser Wilhelm II. After the 1916 Battle of Jutland there was enormous demand for depictions of the action, both from the public and the captains of ships which had participated; to satisfy it, Admiral Scheer, the High Seas Fleet commander, took the fleet into the Baltic with Bergen aboard his flagship and went through a replay of the battle complete with blank firing of the guns. In the 1930s many of these paintings were included in the German Naval Memorial at Kiel, and were later placed in the Tamm Museum in Hamburg, Germany.

In June and July 1917, Bergen took the unprecedented step of joining the crew of the submarine U-53, under Kapitänleutnant Hans Rose, on an Atlantic combat patrol. The series of paintings that resulted is often considered to be among his finest work.


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