NORTH STAR FINE ART

From AskArt "Landscape and marine painter Charles Paul Gruppe was born in Picton, Canada, September 3, 1860.  Largely self-taught, Gruppe did study in Holland and a good portion of his work consists of Holland inspired scenes.  He should not be confused with his son, artist Emile Gruppe, who painted many well-known New England scenes. 

When Gruppe was ten, he moved with his family to Rochester, New York, after the death of his father.  Interested in painting from an early age, he spent much of his time sketching and creating watercolors and oils.  To help support his mother and sisters, he worked in a sign-painting shop, soon mastering the craft.

Eventually, at age twenty-one, he had earned enough money to travel steerage to Europe, where he traveled through France, Germany, and Holland, searching for a place to settle and practice his art.  He was taken with Holland, perhaps attracted to its fishing villages with their picturesque boats and quaint houses, and decided to stay.  He built a home and studio in the little fishing village of Katwyk Ann Zee and painted much of his European work in the vicinity of that town.

While in Holland, his skill at subtle coloration and careful draftsmanship became so identified with the Dutch School of painting that he was elected to the exclusive Pulchre Studio in the in the Hague, something highly unique for an American. Members of the Dutch Royal Family collected his work, which included portraits of the Dutch people as well as genre, marine, and countryside scenes.  Many of his paintings are of the Zuider Zee and of Sheveningen, where he had a vacation villa.  Charles Gruppe's work, This Painting, (ca 1903), which depicts a sailboat tied to a quay in icy waters, is one example of the silver gray tonalist paintings in which he specialized when he was in Holland. 

Altogether, Gruppe spent over twenty years in Holland, becoming a celebrity artist and ultimately being patronized by the royalty of Europe.  His work is represented in many museums in America and Europe. "