Siegward sprotte - Artist

Siegward Sprotte is not an artist whose work you regularly see in the UK, but when you think he lived on a small island south of Denmark located in the North Sea , the landscape is familiar . Certainly familiar with many artists work in East Anglia looking out onto those sometimes bleak but beautiful seascapes . He was born in Germany in 1913. At seventeen he was already taking lessons in painting from Karl Hagemeister, whose master class he joined in 1932. In 1931 Siegward Sprotte enrolled at the Berlin Art Academy, where he studied under Emil Orlik. This was an important period in his artistic development where linking European and Far Eastern painting made a lasting impression on the young Siegward Sprotte.
Sprotte collaborated with Hermann Kasack ['On the Chinese Element in Art']. From 1944 Sprotte worked on Sylt and he said 'The Dune world of the North Frisian Islands looked at me in a West-Eastern way'. Sprotte worked in both northern and southern Europe each year and also went to the US. Numerous international solo and group shows from 1929 mark milestones in Sprotte's career. In 1970 Sprotte was made an honorary member of the International Academy of Literature, Art and Science in Rome and an honorary member of the Potsdam Kulturbund. Further distinctions followed, including a gold medal for services to art from the International Congress for Security and Peace (US) in 1983 and the 1984 World Prize for Culture from the Centro Studie Ricerche delle Nazioni in Calvatone. His work is particularly well admired in his home country, Singapore, China and the USA , being held by ,many public and private collections .

Siegward Sprotte died on Sylt on 7 September 2004.