Childhood, days of youth and training

Jochen Sachse was born at the 8th of April 1930 at the manor Gleina near Bautzen/Saxonia. From 1935 until 1939 he regularly spent his summer holidays in Swinemünde at the Baltic Sea. This maritime atmosphere inspired the young eight year old boy in all its ways and so he began to draw ships. In Bautzen he spent time during the Second World War and the time after war as a schoolboy and trainee.

As he graduated in school, he learned the profession of motor vehicle mechanic. In the year of 1952 he went to the sea for his first one-month-trip with the motor ship of the former OPDR (Oldenburg-Portuguese steamship company) named "TANGER", where he was working as an intern to get into university in 1953. The 23-year old machine assistant began his ship and marine engineering studies at the technical university in Berlin, where he graduated in 1960 as an industrial engineer.

For this degree he rewarded himself with a six-month journey on one of the ships owned by the Hamburg shipping company Rickmers, called the "ETHA RICKMERS". From the profession of an engineer he came to his very special vocation: the young shipbuilder with all his functional knowledge became an artist, who wanted to capture both the techniques and the maritime atmosphere. Painting has always been his fascination but he could never visit an art school. Among his artistic role models were the marine painters Walter Zeeden (1891-1961), Claus Bergen (1885-1964), the American Carl G. Evers (1907-2007) as well as the French Marin Marie (1901-1087).

On the way to his unique pictorial language

During an internship at the German shipyard of Hamburg, the shipbuilding student sold his very first painting to Erich Müller-Stinnes, the owner of the former shipping company "Horn-Line" . It has been a tempera painting of the “MS HORNLAND”.

This ever-growing scope of diverse experience became unquestionably important considering the new challenges of marine painting: an increasing number of customers wanted a representation of their own new ships, which were still in the making. Jochen Sachse took advantage of the opportunity – he used the construction plans for his works. With the aid of the central-perspective geometry and the comparison of already existing models, preliminary drawings were first created, which lays the foundation for the detail oriented and colour precise gouache paintings.

From 1969 to 1994 Sachse was the head of the swiss company Sulzer Escher-Wyss in Hamburg, who produced and sold propellers for ships. Hence, his main and secondary profession formed a symbiotic relationship: more than half of his painted ships have had an Escher-Wyss machine installed. 

After a while, unique ship portraits were developed, which often conveyed more than photographs were able to. Jochen Sachse once said, he could “freely choose the combination of ship, light and weather”. This afforded him freedom although he always included a perfectly accurate reproduction. Using this method, his paintings became a living testimony of all types of ships.

All ships of the world

On Sachses painting you can find passenger ships, ferries, Roll-on/roll-off ships, heavy-lift ships, general cargo ships, reefer and container ships, oil and LNG tanker, bulk carrier and private sailing and motor yachts. Also, small special ships piqued Jochen Sachse’s interest: surveying and polar exploration vessels, tug boats, supply vessels, trawlers, dredgers, coastal patrol boats, rescue boats or various frigate and corvette types, submarines and destroyers.

The decade-long work for the German Navy is documented with great detail in the brochures for the commissioning of the ships. Furthermore, Sachses ship paintings were published in various German and international magazines as well as commended in diverse exhibitions.

In the process of finishing a new work, Jochen Sachses life rich with experiences ended on the third of January 2013. Moved by his love for his work and profession but also for his family and long-term friendships his endeavor will always live on in these pages. It describes a world of seafaring and shipping industry which transcends the centuries, and has been thrown into a state of crisis in the 1980s due to a tremendous overcapacity – and has evolved ever since.

Maybe you will discover through browsing your personal souvenir of the marine painter Jochen Sachse.