Maurer - "Still Life with Red Vase" Abstract still life gouache painting of apples, red vase, and pitchers

Alfred Maurer • American: 1868-1932

Still Life With Red Vase • Gouache - Paperboard 29” x 25-1/2”

Paris, 1906. On a hot, humid August day, in a salon only blocks from the meandering Seine, a 38 year-old American artist met the great French modernist, Matisse. Until then, Alfred Maurer had painted in an “acceptable” style, often compared with great realist portrait masters John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer. Maurer had lived a charmed life for 38 years. He was successful. He was in Paris. He was handsome. And, he was on the verge of convincing a demanding father that his son was, indeed, an artist of style and note … just like his father.

Then the world turned from North to South. Alfred Maurer, handsome bon vivant of the Paris art scene, but a shy momma’s boy in his native New York, discovered modern art in all its bold, colorful, curious beauty. Matisse, along with Maurer’s friends Leo and Gertrude Stein, guided his path into a new world.

Gone was his commercial popularity. Vanished was any chance of earning his father’s favor. Remaining was a sense of artistic fulfillment in the magical “City of Lights.” This was enough until World War I chased Maurer home to New York.

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Ripped away from Paris, Maurer moved into his father’s home. Soon his beloved mother died, leaving him alone with a hectoring father who hated modern art. Maurer must have been accustomed to living on the edge, but torn from his moorings, he began a descent that ended with his tragic suicide in 1932.

Today, Maurer is considered a pioneer of modern art in America. But, turn the clock back to that fateful summer day in 1906. Alfred Maurer stood on a knife-sharp precipice. Fall to one side and he would continue painting in a popular style that had brought him acclaim and material wealth. Fall to the other side and he would incur his father’s wrath, lose his audience and his financial support, be attacked by angry critics, but eventually be celebrated after death.

Art changed and so did Maurer. But, for some people, change doesn’t always end well.

To understand Alfred Maurer, read about the Neo-Impressionist movement of his formative years, as well as the Fauvists, Cubists and Expressionists that guided his later work.

Canton Museum of Art Permanent Collection • Gift of Ralph L. Wilson 71.35

4 Ways to Sound Smart When Viewing at The Canton Museum of Art

1.
“Maurer turned his back on a thriving career as a realist painter to pursue new directions in modern art.”

2.
“His father was a very traditional artist who actually worked for Currier & Ives. He strongly disapproved of his son’s fascination with modern art.”

3.
“After his mother’s death in 1917, he gradually withdrew from the world and committed suicide in 1932.”

4.
“Although his modern art was never a commercial success during his life, he is now viewed as one of the great American modernists.”

Maurer Timeline. Scroll over images to see timeline.

1868

Born in New York City. His father, Louis, was a respected traditional artist who hated modern art and worked for Currier & Ives. Louis eventually owned his own art lithography company.

1884

At age 16, young Alfred quit school to work for his father’s lithography firm.

1897

Maurer had already studied art with sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward and famed painter William Merritt Chase. To round out his art education, he went to Paris to study at the Academie Julian.

1901

He painted “An Arrangement,” a traditional work in the Whistler style. This painting won First Prize at the Carnegie International Exhibition, cementing his growing reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. The same year he won a Bronze Medal at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

1905

Won Third Place at the Liege (Belgium) Exposition and a Gold Medal at the International Exposition in Munich.

1906

Made a sharp change in style, embracing the rich, bold colors and arrangements of the Fauvists. Ahead of his time, this stylistic change cost him his growing international reputation, as well as the approval of his demanding father who hated modern art.

1913

Having already staged shows of his modern paintings at Alfred Stieglitz’s famed 291 Gallery, he had four paintings accepted to the legendary Armory Show. This show is credited with establishing modern art in America.

1914

The breakout of World War I in Europe forced Maurer to leave his beloved Paris and return to New York City. His father refused to support his artistic direction, although Maurer continued to paint in a garret in his home. Art critic Robert Hughes wrote of “(his) banishment to a hell of Oedipal conflict.”

1916

The Forum Exhibition of Modern American Painters in New York City featured 17 of the most significant modern artists of the day, including Alfred Maurer.

1917

Maurer’s beloved mother died and he began a slow withdrawal from the world around him and a descent into mental illness.

1924

New York art dealer, Erhard Weyhe, bought the entire contents of Maurer’s studio, over 250 canvases in a transaction that finally gave Maurer a sense of financial security.

1930s

Maurer’s 100 year old father staged a retrospective throwing shade on his son’s own modern art career.

1932

Alfred Maurer hung himself five months after his father’s death. His reason for abandoning realism: “It is impossible to present an exact transcription of nature. It is necessary for art to differ from nature. Perhaps art should be an intensification of nature. The artist must be free to paint his effects. Nature must not bind him.”