Anthony Thieme (1888-1954)

“Wear holes in the soles of your shoes, but spend money on plenty of paint.”

For a period in the late 1930s and early 40s, Impressionist Anthony Thieme (1888-1954) became near-synonymous with coastal New England, his 1938 painting Motif No. 1 of a small red fishing shack at the end of a granite pier on the water’s edge plastered on prints and Christmas cards that earned the artist a reported $200,000. Thieme had become a staple of the Rockport community by that point, having established his own studio and school of art there in 1929 and working alongside artists like Aldro Hubbard and Emil Gruppe. His sparkling marine scenes and dappled cobblestone streets earned him the moniker “master of shadow and light.” 

Born in Holland in 1888, Thieme studied art there and Germany and Italy before coming to the U.S. in 1917. His first jobs in the States were as a stage designer for plays and ballets in New York City and Boston. It was the move to Rockport in 1929 that allowed his career as an Impressionist to grow, where the coastal scenes provided endless inspiration — an entertaining throwback to when his father sent him to naval school at age 14 in the hopes of dissuading him from an artistic career, but where he instead found himself enraptured with the marine subject matter. 

A fire just prior to Christmas in 1946 that destroyed the majority of Thieme’s work was the catalyst for a shift in artistic focus and locale. His last years were spent splitting time between the South and New England, the rich light of Florida and the Carolinas a refreshing challenge for one accustomed to grey days and cold ocean spray.