“In art, ‘intentions’ have no place; only results. In good art, the results do not have to be explained by any personally conducted eulogy.”
— Elementary Principles of Landscape Painting, John Carlson, 1927
Artist Biography
Hans F. Gude discovered his interest in and facility for drawing as a pre-teen when he encountered books about the old masters on the shelves of his home growing up. He spent many hours meticulously reproducing in pencil, charcoal, or ink the figures he saw in paintings and statues by Michelangelo, Bernini, Leonardo, and others.
His father, a civil engineer, introduced him to the principles of draftsmanship and linear perspective—knowledge he applies in his landscapes.
Through high school and for two years of college, Hans studied and practiced art. He supplemented his coursework with copious reading about art history, methods, and technique, including design, color theory, materials, perspective, anatomy, drawing, and painting.
Hans subscribes to a traditional view of art-making, seeing it as a craft, the goal of which is to produce artworks pleasing to the eye using the time-honored techniques of design, form, draftsmanship, color harmony, and the illusion of light.
He adopts Leonardo’s advice, moreover, that a painter should not just learn to do one thing well, but work to achieve proficiency in all manner of methods and subjects, including landscapes, figures, and portraits.
His preferred mediums include pencil, colored pencil, oil paint, gouache, watercolor, charcoal, and pen & ink. He recently began creating digital art by adding Procreate on an iPad Pro to his toolbox.
Hans comes by his art interest and talent ‘naturally,’ being the great-great grandson of the 19th c. Norwegian romanticist painter Hans F. Gude (1825–1903), whom he is named after and who at age 29 was appointed the professor of landscape painting at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf, Germany, the preeminent landscape academy in Europe at the time.
Hans is a Southern California native. After completing high school he moved to Northern California for college, graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. Later he took an MBA degree (finance) from Cal State East Bay.
Cal Licensed Artist in Residence
Owing to the quality and unique vision of his campus artworks, Hans was selected as the official Cal Licensed Artist in Residence in October 2017. This designation authorizes him to officially represent the campus through his artwork, to affix the UC Berkeley trademark to his images, and to offer licensed products bearing the University’s marks.