| Alfred Maurer | ||
| Birth Date: April 21, 1868 |
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| Death Date: August 4, 1932 Artist Gallery |
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| Alfred Maurer, the son of Louis Maurer who was a commercial artist for Currier & Ives, was born in New York City in 1868.
After studying for several years at the National Academy of Design, Maurer traveled to France in 1897, where he worked for the next 14 years. In France he studied at the Academie Julien. From 1897 to 1904, Maurer painted conventional, sometimes even decorative, studies of women and interiors that were considered academic paintings of the period. In 1903, Maurer met Leo and Gertrude Stein and almost immediately his style of painting changed. Between 1905 and 1907, he abandoned his tonal style and developed instead a Fauvist approach to color and form.
Maurer returned permanently to New York City in 1914 at the start of World War I. The period between 1914 and 1919 was probably the most important era of the development of modern art in America. During this time Maurer’s still-life and figure studies developed in a cubist manner, with flattened planes and distorted shapes.
In late 1917, his mother, to whom he had always been close, died, and Maurer’s isolation increased. According to Elizabeth McCausland, Maurer’s biographer, “Louis Maurer continued to act as his son’s severest critic…He would go into the room (Maurer lived and painted in his father'’ home), to stand in front of Alfy'’ paintings and vituperate them”.
In 1924, E. Weyhe, an art dealer, bought and exhibited the contents of Maurer’s studio. Sherwood Anderson stated in the catalog essay: “long have I been convinced that Mr. Maurer is one of the really great modern painters”. Today, Alfred Maurer is considered one of the very first American modernist painters.
In 1932, Maurer committed suicide at his home in New York City.
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