Carl Locher

Carl Locher (1851–1915) was a Danish marine and genre painter associated with Skagen who painted the fishing community and coastal scenery of northern Denmark. Born in Flensburg (then part of Denmark), he trained at the Copenhagen Academy and subsequently became part of the Skagen colony, the group of Danish and Scandinavian artists who settled in the northernmost fishing village of Jutland from the 1870s. His paintings include marine studies — Fishing cutters in the moonlit night (1888), A beach with sailing boats, early morning (1886) — as well as genre scenes and historical subjects. His painting of the funeral procession of Frederick VII (1889) is an ambitious historical composition. He exhibited at the Charlottenborg annual salon and at the Paris Exposition. His work represents the historical and documentary wing of the Skagen colony alongside the more painterly naturalism of Krøyer, Ancher, and Drachmann.

Locher's marine paintings are atmospheric and competent, with particular sensitivity to moonlit and early-morning coastal light. His handling is straightforward academic naturalism without the experimental tendencies of the leading Skagen painters. His colour sense is cool and silvery in the Scandinavian tradition.

Locher was a valued member of the Skagen colony whose historical and documentary subjects complement the more purely painterly work of his more celebrated colleagues. His paintings of Skagen fishing life contribute to the colony's collective visual record of a rapidly changing way of life.