John White Alexander
Encyclopedia
John White Alexander was an American
portrait, figure, and decorative painter
and illustrator
.
Alexander was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania
, now a part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
. Orphaned in infancy, he was reared by his grandparents and at the age of 12 became a telegraph boy in Pittsburgh. His talent at drawing attracted the attention of one of his employers, who assisted him to develop them. He moved to New York
at the age of eighteen and worked in an office at Harper's Weekly
, where he was an illustrator and political cartoonist at the same time that Abbey
, Pennell
, Pyle
, and other celebrated illustrators labored there. After an apprenticeship of three years, he travelled to Munich
for his first formal training. Owing to the lack of funds, he removed to the village of Polling, Bavaria, and worked with Frank Duveneck
. They travelled to Venice, where he profited by the advice of Whistler
, and then he continued his studies in Florence, the Netherlands
, and Paris
.
In 1881 he returned to New York
and speedily achieved great success in portraiture, numbering among his sitters Oliver Wendell Holmes
, John Burroughs
, Henry G. Marquand
, R. A. L. Stevenson
, and president McCosh
of Princeton University. His first exhibition in the Paris Salon
of 1893 was a brilliant success and was followed by his immediate election to the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts. Many additional honors were bestowed on him. In 1889 he painted for Mrs. Jeremiah Milbank a well-received portrait of Walt Whitman
and one of her husband, Jeremiah Milbank
. In 1901 he was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and in 1902 he became a member of the National Academy of Design
. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
, and President of the National Society of Mural Painters
. Among the gold medals received by him were those of the Paris Exposition (1900)
and the World's Fair
at St. Louis
(1904).
Alexander was married to Elizabeth Alexander Alexander, to whom he was introduced in part because of their shared last name. Elizabeth was the daughter of James Waddell Alexander, President of the Equitable Life Assurance Society
at the time of the Hyde Ball
scandal. The Alexanders had one child, the mathematician James Waddell Alexander II
.
John White Alexander died in New York on 31 May 1915.
in Pittsburgh
, a series of Alexander's murals entitled "Apotheosis of Pittsburgh" (1905–1907) covers the walls of the three-storey atrium area.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
portrait, figure, and decorative painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
.
Biography
Allegheny, Pennsylvania
Allegheny City was a Pennsylvania municipality located on the north side of the junction of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, across from downtown Pittsburgh. It was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907...
, now a part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
. Orphaned in infancy, he was reared by his grandparents and at the age of 12 became a telegraph boy in Pittsburgh. His talent at drawing attracted the attention of one of his employers, who assisted him to develop them. He moved to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
at the age of eighteen and worked in an office at Harper's Weekly
Harper's Weekly
Harper's Weekly was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor...
, where he was an illustrator and political cartoonist at the same time that Abbey
Edwin Austin Abbey
Edwin Austin Abbey was an American artist, illustrator, and painter. He flourished at the beginning of what is now referred to as the "golden age" of illustration, and is best known for his drawings and paintings of Shakespearean and Victorian subjects, as well as for his painting of Edward VII's...
, Pennell
Joseph Pennell
Joseph Pennell was an American artist and author.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, and first studied there, but like his compatriot and friend, James McNeill Whistler, he afterwards went to Europe and made his home in London...
, Pyle
Howard Pyle
Howard Pyle was an American illustrator and author, primarily of books for young people. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, he spent the last year of his life in Florence, Italy.__FORCETOC__...
, and other celebrated illustrators labored there. After an apprenticeship of three years, he travelled to Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
for his first formal training. Owing to the lack of funds, he removed to the village of Polling, Bavaria, and worked with Frank Duveneck
Frank Duveneck
Frank Duveneck was an American figure and portrait painter.-Youth:Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, the son of German immigrant Bernard Decker. Decker died when Frank was only a year old and his widow remarried Joseph Duveneck...
. They travelled to Venice, where he profited by the advice of Whistler
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...
, and then he continued his studies in Florence, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
In 1881 he returned to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and speedily achieved great success in portraiture, numbering among his sitters Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was an American physician, professor, lecturer, and author. Regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the 19th century, he is considered a member of the Fireside Poets. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat...
, John Burroughs
John Burroughs
John Burroughs was an American naturalist and essayist important in the evolution of the U.S. conservation movement. According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress,...
, Henry G. Marquand
Henry Gurdon Marquand
Henry Gurdon Marquand , American philanthropist and collector, was born in New York City on 11 April 1819. In 1839, upon the retirement from the jewelry business of his brother, Frederick , who was a liberal benefactor of Yale College and of the Union Theological Seminary, he became his brother's...
, R. A. L. Stevenson
Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson
Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson was a Scottish art critic, a cousin of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson. His father was the lighthouse engineer Alan Stevenson. Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, graduated with the master's degree from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and studied art in the Edinburgh...
, and president McCosh
James McCosh
James McCosh was a prominent philosopher of the Scottish School of Common Sense. He was president of Princeton University 1868-1888.-Biography:...
of Princeton University. His first exhibition in the Paris Salon
Paris Salon
The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...
of 1893 was a brilliant success and was followed by his immediate election to the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts. Many additional honors were bestowed on him. In 1889 he painted for Mrs. Jeremiah Milbank a well-received portrait of Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
and one of her husband, Jeremiah Milbank
Jeremiah Milbank
Jeremiah Milbank American businessman, was a successful dry goods commission merchant, speculator in Texas territorial bonds, manufacturer, and railroad investor. His most successful business efforts were the New York Condensed Milk Company which he co-founded with inventor Gail Borden and the...
. In 1901 he was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and in 1902 he became a member of the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 250-member honor society; its goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Located in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan in New York, it shares Audubon Terrace, its Beaux Arts campus on...
, and President of the National Society of Mural Painters
National Society of Mural Painters
The National Society of Mural Painters is an American artists' organization founded in 1895, originally known as The Mural Painters. The charter of the society is to advance the techniques and standards for the design and execution of mural art for the enrichment of architecture in the United...
. Among the gold medals received by him were those of the Paris Exposition (1900)
Exposition Universelle (1900)
The Exposition Universelle of 1900 was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from April 15 to November 12, 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate development into the next...
and the World's Fair
Louisiana Purchase Exposition
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the Saint Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States in 1904.- Background :...
at St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
(1904).
Alexander was married to Elizabeth Alexander Alexander, to whom he was introduced in part because of their shared last name. Elizabeth was the daughter of James Waddell Alexander, President of the Equitable Life Assurance Society
AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company
AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company, formerly The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, also known as The Equitable, was founded by Henry Baldwin Hyde in 1859. In 1991, AXA, a French insurance company, acquired majority control of The Equitable...
at the time of the Hyde Ball
James Hazen Hyde
James Hazen Hyde was the son of Henry Baldwin Hyde, the founder of The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States. James Hazen Hyde was twenty-three when he inherited the majority shares in the billion-dollar Equitable Life Assurance Society in 1899...
scandal. The Alexanders had one child, the mathematician James Waddell Alexander II
James Waddell Alexander II
James Waddell Alexander II was a mathematician and topologist of the pre-World War II era and part of an influential Princeton topology elite, which included Oswald Veblen, Solomon Lefschetz, and others...
.
John White Alexander died in New York on 31 May 1915.
Works
Many of his paintings are in museums and public places in the United States and in Europe, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Art Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Butler Institute, and the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. In addition, in the entrance hall to the Art Museum of the Carnegie InstituteCarnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, a series of Alexander's murals entitled "Apotheosis of Pittsburgh" (1905–1907) covers the walls of the three-storey atrium area.
External links
- John White Alexander papers, 1775-1968, bulk 1870-1915 from the Smithsonian Archives of American ArtArchives of American ArtThe Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 16 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washington, D.C...
- John White Alexander at Artcyclopedia