Alfred Maurer was an important American Modernist who studied at the National Academy of Design (New York) in 1884 and at the Académie Julian (Paris) in 1897. Living and working in Paris for 14 years, he was the first American painter to adopt the Fauvist style he had seen in the local galleries and at the home of his influential friends, Gertrude and Leo Stein.
Maurer was born in New York, the son of German-born Louis Maurer, a celebrated painter and lithographer. At age sixteen, Maurer was taken out of school to work in his father's lithographic firm, as his father had done at that age. In 1897, after limited study with the sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward and painter William Merritt Chase, Maurer left for Paris. He participated in various independent salons and was one of the few Americans to study with Henri Matisse.
Maurer’s early work, in the style of James McNeill Whistler, was recognized with many prestigious awards, including First Prize at the 1901 Carnegie International Exhibition. At the time, it was the most important exhibition in the world, with jurors that included Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer. Maurer exhibited regularly in New York and across Europe. By 1907, he was producing vigorously painted Fauvist landscapes.
In 1914, Maurer returned to America with a unique painting expression that combined Cubist abstraction, bold portraiture, and high color. This approach would serve him for the rest of his life, although he never found financial success for his critically acclaimed and unique style. He exhibited in New York at Alfred Stieglitz’s Gallery 291 and four of his paintings were shown at the legendary 1913 Armory Show. He participated in prestigious exhibitions, such as "The Forum Exhibition of Modern American Painters," a New York show in 1916 which featured seventeen of the most significant native modernists of the time. He also exhibited regularly at the New York-based Society of Independent Artists and was elected their director in 1919. In 1924, the prominent New York dealer Erhard Weyhe bought the contents of Maurer's studio and represented the artist for the remainder of his career.
Alfred Maurer’s work is now celebrated all over the world and is included in many public collections in the United States including; the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Pennsylvania, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC.
