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Captain Albert


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Born: Albert Hunting in Bocholt, Germany. 1924-2001.



Lived on St. Martin, French West Indies from 1984.



ART EDUCATION: 
Autodidact 



PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST: 

Remembering the Artist by longtime friend Lucia Trifan


I met Albert in Spain 1984. He was a boat captain and was getting ready to set sail for a trip around the world. That was far too fascinating for me to let such an opportunity pass me by so I asked what I could do to come along. “We need a cook”, he said. I didn’t know how to cook but said “Yes, sure I can do that”, and so I became a specialist in mixing canned goods for the crew and embarked on a long friendship with Capitan Albert.


St. Martin was on our course and it is there that the owner of the boat announced that he could no longer finance the expedition. So there we were, stranded so to say on an island in the Caribbean with two choices, go home as we each had a return ticket or stay. St. Martin was for me the newest part of the world and like a force that keeps you from leaving, the energy of the Caribbean sun decided our fate for us. We didn’t have the money to stay but we stayed anyway and quickly began trying to find means on how to survive, one day at a time. I explored ways to make a living with my art while Albert took on odd jobs.

I started painting little things for the tourists. Albert was a thinker, always thinking. He wasn’t much of a talker. He would watch and observe and for the first time in his life, he came into contact with art and he started to bubble. One day, as he stood contemplating the work of an amatuer, he said to me “that, I can do”. So I started to encourage him; I gave him paper and colors. By nature and culture, he was a very disciplined character so he took to his new endeavor with much seriousness and meticulous research. He got books from the library and started to appreciate the art world for the first time in his life.

He admired Monet, Renoir, Maisse, Pissaro, and for the next 5 years, he drew and drew. I realized that he had talent he was unaware of. The proof is his works after just 15 years of painting with no art education to back him. He regretted having discovered the arts and painting so late in life. He knew now that had he started at a young age, had he only known, he could have challenged the greats of his time.


His life on the island became rich, not in money because he had none, but in discovery of expression. His new artist revelation breathed renaissance in the once captain of the seas, and he savored every moment.

His end came quickly. Within one year of discovering cancer, he passed away. People used to ask me, “Where’s Albert?” and when I told them of his passing, the reactions were so genuine. Everyone who knew him said he had been a great man. I didn’t know what people really thought of him until he was gone. He had been a peaceful man who mixed with all walks of life but he used to always say that the people he most enjoyed were simple people, simple minds, of humble lives - “real people” he us to say.

Capitan Albert was a simple man who had led a simple life. He was straightforward as if naked before you, never hiding behind appearances. But in his works, we find the intricacies of a profound talent and observer, a quiet Capitain who learned to sail the arts with as much skill and inspiration as he had sailed the many seas.

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