Rotterdam, Fischmarkt 1886 - 1922

Ferdinand Eckhardt made this print of Rotterdam’s fish market sometime in the first half of the twentieth century. It offers us a glimpse into the daily life of a port city, alive with commerce. Eckhardt was a German-Canadian artist and museum director, and it’s interesting to consider his position in relation to this scene. The dense network of lines creates a sense of bustling activity, but also perhaps of being overwhelmed. Is this the view of an outsider looking in? Or someone who is immersed in the scene and depicts it from within? The image likely reflects Eckhardt’s involvement in the institutions of art, being that he was both the director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the director of the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal. In these roles, he was involved in the management and interpretation of cultural artifacts for a broad public. To better understand the social and institutional context of this print, we might research the history of Rotterdam’s fishing industry, the artist’s biography, or exhibition catalogues.