Karl Heinz Marquardt

Biography

Karl Heinz Marquardt was born on 9 November 1927 in Hamburg, Germany. He inherited a passion for all things nautical from his father, a mariner, war artist, model-maker and marine artist, who had exhibited in museums across Germany.

He served his country in World War II with the Kriegsmarine, subsequently joining the post-war British-led German Mine Sweeping Administration. In 1949, Marquardt joined forces with his father, creating far in excess of a hundred new exhibits and restoring antique artefacts across the whole spectrum of ship evolution for museums damaged during the war, including the Deutsche Museum at Munich (see Adler von Lübeck). His expertise was utilised by private and corporate clients including a German model manufacturer, designing 8 model kits for beginners, several shipyards, and in twelve prestigious museums across Europe.

Marquardt emigrated from Germany to Australia in 1966, taking on several significant posts in the succeeding decades. Following tenure as Chief Modeller for General Motors Holden, he became the Melbourne Maritime Museum’s Honorary Curator for Ship Models and Paintings, creating several Australian maritime history paintings for the museum, and a Valuer of Ship Models for the Taxation Incentive Scheme for the Arts. As one of the few members of the Enterprize Committee, in 1990, he researched and drew up the drawings for the ‘replica of schooner Enterprize’, the vessel of Melbourne’s founding fathers. Later he designed and wrote about an alternative to the ‘Duyfken replica’, the V.O.C. vessel which in 1606 made the first documented European landing on Australian soil.

As the Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney, asserts, the ‘replica of James Cook’s HMB Endeavour’, which began in 1988 in Fremantle, Western Australia, ‘is one of the world’s most accurate maritime reproductions.’ Marquardt’s expertise was utilised in the construction of the replica, a subject he reprised in his book Captain Cook’s Endeavour (1995) as part of Conway’s Anatomy of the Ship series.

Marquardt has written several books on ship design and construction, both in English and his native tongue, German. Of note are his standard Eighteenth Century Rigs and Rigging (1992) and The Global Schooner: Origins, Development, Design and Construction 1695-1845 (2003). His article V.O.C. Tender Duyfken 1603-1606, an alternative to the replica is another outstanding example.

A highly skilled draughtsman, Marquardt provided the drawings for Brian Lavery and Geoff Hunt’s The Frigate Surprise: The Design, Construction and Careers of Jack Aubrey’s Favourite Command (2008), which examines the real historic ship behind the Patrick O’Brian novels.

In 1987 and 1989 Marquardt was commissioned by the Reserve Bank of Australia to produce maritime drawings for the commemorative $10 and the current $20 notes. He was a regular contributor to Conway’s quarterly journal Model Shipwright.

Marquardt is a fellow of the Australian Society of Marine Artists and was made an Honorary Member of the Russian Guild of Ship Modellers for ‘his outstanding contributions to international ship modelling.’

Marquardt has a dedicated website created by Kay Wunder, where many of his articles can be read.