Otto Ackermann

Otto Ackermann

(Berlin 1872 - Düsseldorf 1956)

German painter, woodcarver and woodblock printer.

Otto Acckermann according to the few biographical facts there are was trained at "Eschke in Berlin". This undoubtedly was naval and landscape painter Hermann Escke (1842-1900) who was awarded the title of Professor Imperial  and close enough to the German Imperial House of Hohenzollern to have his son Hans Hermann appointed German Consul General of Singapore, in 1889, so that must have been by Kaiser Wilhelm II who came to power in 1888 (until 1918). Hans-Hermann Eschke became the first full time German diplomat.

Otto Ackerman however stayed closer to home and wandered from Berlin to Düsseldorf in 1897, where he was to stay the rest of his life traveling to Belgium, Italy and into the Netherlands. He painted landscapes and Belgian and Dutch coastal scenery.

Possibly Otto A. is identical with the (G or O) Ackermann of the before posting. This woodblock print by Otto Ackermann, it is the only(!) one I could find, from the van der Grinten collection depicts Kaiserswerth on the Rhine near Düsseldorf. Sadly the signature isn't visible in this photo. German colleague painter Theodor Hagen (1842-1919) painted this romantic location too, the Ferry house and Inn on the banks of the Rhine river.

And, according to this early 1900 postcard, they were both pretty acurate.

G or O Ackermann (?)

Who was the artist that created this woodblock print titled "Auerhahn" (Wood grouse, Tetrao Urogallus) ? I read G (maybe O) Ackermann but cannot find a printer by that name. It's a big print, 32 x 37 cm. with nice blues. This big and illusive bird is also depicted on this most famous Finnish (it's in the Finlands National Gallery) painting by Ferdinand von Wright (1822-1906), It's the biggest of the grouse family.

The simpleton that framed the print cut the matt too narrow and glued the print onto it thus hiding the black border margins behind the matt. Instead of creating a nice and even space around the printed area. Maybe it was ignorance or maybe it was instructed by the buyer. On the back is written "nr. 6315, No: 65 and in Silver frame". Most probably instructions for shop catalogue identification, matting and framing. It was sold (or maybe only framed ?) in the Netherlands by "the Bijenkorf". A Dutch Harrods, having a Fine Arts Department. A new, posh and very modern shopping centre openend right in the heart of Amsterdam in 1914,

with pré-WWII branches opening in the Hague in 1924, designed by architect Piet Kramer (1881-1961): 

and Rotterdam designed by architect Willem Dudok (1884-1974), opening in late 1930. This great, beautiful and much loved modernistic building was distroyed only 9 years later  in the cowardly bombing raid and folowing firestorm of Rotterdam May 14th 1940. There are plans of rebuilding it. On the same spot, now housing a new Maritime Museum.