Hans Bohrdt
| Hans Bohrdt | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Hans Bohrdt 11 February 1857 |
| Died | 19 December 1945 (aged 88) |
| Nationality | German |
| Occupation | Artist |
Hans Bohrdt was born on 11 February 1857 into a comfortably well-off middle-class family. He lived and worked in Berlin, Germany. His love for the sea began when he was 15 when he visited the port of Hamburg. Bohrdt was a self-taught painter who would later go on to give private lessons to Kaiser Wilhelm II. German Kaiser Wilhelm II took a liking to Bohrdt and would fund all of his projects, which were often nationalistic in nature. In 1915 Bohrdt created his most famous illustration which is called "The Last Man". The image shows a German navy officer holding up a German flag as his ship sinks because he would rather go down with the ship than surrender. "The Last Man" would become one of the most widely recognized propaganda images used during the war to inspire courage. Bohrdt was accepted into the Imperial Yacht Club in Kiel. In 1906 the Kaiser granted Bohrdt a spacious villa in Berlin. After World War I, Bohrdt made a living drawing maritime postcards, book illustrations, magazines, and supplied images for newspaper articles.
Hans parents were Adolph Eduard Bohrdt and Rosalie Pauline Szymkowski, and he was one of 7 of their children (Paul Reinhold, Albert Anton, Maria Ann, Clare Antonie, Johanna Antonie and Carl Eduard). His father was a civil servant in the legal department of the Imperial administration, and Bohrdt was to become a bright star in that firmament of marine painters that shone so brightly during the Wilhelmine era. Two world wars not only resulted in the decimation of Bohrdt's family but in the number of his works as well. Many are still unaccounted for,including his best-known painting, "Der letzte Mann" (1915), which has been lost since 1924. Innumerable reproductions, both cheap and more lavish, have been reproduced from this work and it has been widely employed for various political purposes.
Hans married Anna Louise Cook in Berlin Rixdorf in 1898. Together they had three children who would later leave and live in separate places around the world, the oldest stayed in Hamburg and the son moved out to Buenos Aires. They lived in the Dahlem district of Berlin.
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Wikipedia