'Coastal Breakers' by Josef Arentz, Mid-Century Oil Seascape, Baltimore Museum of Art, Kennebunkport, Maine

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Description

Signed lower right, 'Josef M Arentz' (German-American, 1903-1969) and painted circa 1955.
Displayed in a period, carved gilt-wood and painted … Read more Signed lower right, 'Josef M Arentz' (German-American, 1903-1969) and painted circa 1955.
Displayed in a period, carved gilt-wood and painted frame.
Frame dimensions: 24 x 30 inches x 1.5 inches.

Born in Odendorf, Germany, Jef Arentz immigrated to the United States at the age of twenty-three. Shortly after his arrival, he began his artistic career as a painter of stage scenery in Ohio and later moved to Tampa, Florida, where he established the Florida Art Academy.

Arentz subsequently relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, accepting a position with the art department of the U.S. Printing and Lithograph Company, where he remained until 1946. During this period, he was granted a one-man show, had work accepted for the Maryland Artists Exhibition and received an award from the Baltimore Museum of Art. He also began reproducing some of his paintings for the New York publisher, David Ashley.

A visit to Portland Head Light inspired Arentz's move to Maine where, for many years, he maintained a successful summer gallery in Kennebunkport. The rocky shores and coastal scenery around Kennebunkport became the favored subjects of his work.

Well-known as a painter of maritime scenes, Arentz also painted numerous portraits and Maine landscapes. He continued painting throughout the 1960s, producing elegant studies of the inter-relationship of water and light and movement, capturing the many moods of Maine's dramatic coastline. See less