Mauritz Frederik Hendrick de Haas (1832 - 1895)

Mauritz Frederik Hendrick de Haas was a Dutch-American marine painter. His name has been written as Mauritz Frederik de Haas, Maurice F. H. de Haas, Maurice Frederic Henri de Haas, Mauritz Frederick Hendrick De Haas, Maurice Frederick Hendrick de Haas, as well as various other variations.

De Haas was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He studied art at the Rotterdam Academy and at The Hague under Johannes Bosboom and Louis Meyer. He further studied in London, 1851-1852, following the English watercolorists of the day. In 1857 he received an artist’s commission in the Dutch Navy, but in 1859, under the patronage of August Belmont, who had recently been Minister of the United States at The Hague, de Haas resigned and moved to New York City.

An associate of the National Academy in 1863, de Haas became an academician in 1867. He exhibited annually in the academy, and in 1866 was a founder of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors. He died in New York City.

His “Farragut Passing the Forts at the Battle of New Orleans” and “The Rapids above Niagara,” which were exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1878, were best known but were not his most typical works. De Haas’ preferred subjects were storms and wrecks, wind and heavy surf and less often, moonlight on the coasts of Holland, Jersey, New England, Long Island, the English Channel and the coasts of Grand Manan island in the Bay of Fundy.