X Canto-Gunter Prien

Oil (with salt) on Canvas 30" x 30" (without frame)

1997

Early in the Second World War, Gunther Prien sailed his submersible into the defended British Royal Navy anchorage at Scapa Flow and sunk the battleship Ark Royal. He returned safely to continue sailing successfully against the Royal Navy until luck and technology turned against him and his ship was lost with all hands near the Faeroe Islands, the exact location unknown. Described now as both ardent Catholic and fanatic Nazi. Whatever he was then, he is now entombed in lightless water, his weapons moldered around him, kept secret from the surface. Judged now for his ideology by those free to dwell on the surface, according to the word of those who vanquished him as in the Tenth Canto of Dante's Inferno.

Private collection.

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