"An Arrangement", oil on cardboard
Alfred Henry Maurer (1868 – August 4, 1932) was an
American painter born in New York City. He was the son of German-born Louis Maurer, a
lithographer. At age sixteen, Maurer quit school to work at his father's lithographic firm. In 1897, after studying with the
sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward and painter William Merritt Chase, Maurer left for Paris where
he stayed the next four years, joining a circle of American and French artists. At the time, Maurer's style was realist.
His painting An Arrangement received First Prize at the 1901 Carnegie International Exhibition. Other awards received
by Maurer included the Inness Jr. prize of the Salmagundi Club in 1900 and a bronze medal at the Pan-American Exposition at
Buffalo in 1901. In 1905 he won the third medal at the Liege (Belgium) Exposition and a gold medal at the International
Exposition in Munich.
Briefly returning to New York, determined to show his skeptical father that he could paint, Maurer painted what arguably is
his most famous painting, "An Arrangement," using a woman next door as a model and completing the work (on a borrowed piece of
cardboard) in a matter of mere hours.
At age thirty-six, in Paris, deviating from what everyone (including himself) called "acceptable" painting styles, Maurer
changed his methods sharply and from that point on painted only in the cubist and
fauvist manner, subsequently losing his international reputation.
Leaving Paris shortly before World War I, he returned to his father's house only to be
denied support. For the next seventeen years Maurer painted in a garret in his father's house and was able to gain no critical
acclaim.
It is extremely difficult to run across any of Maurer’s paintings as most of his work is still privately owned.
Maurer took his own life by hanging several weeks after his father's death. At the time of his death, examples of his works
were included in the Memorial Hall Museum in Philedelphia, the Phillips Memorial Gallery in Washington, the Barnes Collection in
Philadelphia, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
References
- "A.H. Maurer, Artist, Suicide by Hanging", New York Times, August 5, 1932.
- Epstein, Stacey (1999). Alfred H. Maurer, Aestheticism to Modernism : 30 November 1999 through 15 January 2000,
Hollis Taggart Galleries , New York: Hollis Taggart Galleries. ASIN B0006RBPVA.
External links
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