Port in Winter

Following his studies under Eugen Bracht (1842-1921) in Dresden, Hans Hartig (1873-1936) returned to Berlin in 1906, where his future life was bound. The artist specialised in painting views of Pomeranian towns and cities. A number of sketches, drawings, and photographic studies formed the basis for Hartig's paintings. His nautical works were highly acclaimed, and large-scale graphic reproductions of his paintings secured his popularity. Hartig kept in touch with Szczecin and Pomerania, visiting Gartz an der Oder, Trzebiatów, Kamień Pomorski, and Nowe Warpno, among others. In 1916 he was a co-founder of the Pomeranian Artists' Association (Pommerscher Künstlerbund). He began to withdraw from actively participating in artistic life after the Nationalist party came to power. It was in February 1936 that he died at his home at Gladitschstrasse 34 in Berlin-Schöneberg. He was buried in the local cemetery, at the Twelve Apostles Church. The painting "Port in Winter" depicts a view of the quay of a fishing port on an ice-drifting river with a small barge in the foreground and a boat moored alongside. Amidst the dense urban buildings in the background, the painter has placed two towers to make it possible to identify the surroundings. They are reminiscent of the round Powder Tower and the polygonal Mint Tower in Goleniów on the Ina River. In Hartig's work they have been made into autonomous buildings, but in reality, they are pieces of surviving sections of the medieval city walls. Purchased for the collection of the National Museum in Szczecin in 2006, the picturesque harbour view, inspired by the Goleniów waterfront, is one of a dozen known original replicas by Hans Hartig from the 1930s. They are all reproductions of a painting by the artist created in 1908 in two variants (smaller and larger), shown at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition (1908) and the Exhibition of German Art in New York (1909). Dariusz Kacprzak