Anthony Thieme

(1888-1954)

Sharing a common country of birth (Holland) and a love of color and boldness in their paintings, Vincent Van Gogh and Anthony Thieme both endured emotional turmoil and both ended their lives the same way.

Striking out on his own at the age of seventeen, Johannes Thieme (he later changed his first name to Anthony), became a fearless and adventurous traveler, linguist, and avocational opera singer, who initially found employment as a scenic backdrop painter in New York City and then in Boston. Along his artistic way he studied oil painting, watercolor, printmaking, and drawing in Dusseldorf, Naples, the Hague, and Paris.

Anthony Thieme and his wife, the former Lillian Beckett, met at the wedding of Richard Recchia, and the noted sculptor suggested the tip of Cape Ann, the quarry town of Rockport, as an ideal spot for the en plein air painter to set up his easel. Thieme did so for many summers, and he never strayed very far from his favorite subject, the angular, red-painted, lobster buoy-covered �Motif #1.� It is estimated that Thieme painted about 400 canvases of the now famous fishing shack (rebuilt after a terrific winter storm), usually with hunchbacked fishermen standing at the wharf�s edge. The fishing boats, white-painted cottages, and church steeples of the picturesque village were a continual inspiration to Thieme, and gave an Old World, laid-back satisfaction to the prolific artist who often could be quite curt and outspoken. However, his admiring students were dismayed, when due to health issues, he was forced to close the Thieme Summer School of Art, which had beeen under his direction from 1929 to 1943.

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