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Alfred Henry Maurer was born in Ney York and was the only child of German immigrants. After school he worked, like his father Louis Maurer, as a lithographer for Currier and Ives, a well-known New York art printing house. But he was also drawn to painting at an early age, so he studied at the National Academy of Design and then went to Paris for a few years, where he continued his studies mainly at the Louvre. His greatest role model at that time was James Abbott McNeill Whistler, a well-known American painter. Maurer's first award-winning painting "An Arrangement of 1901", therefore, shows clear references to Whistler in his painting style. For a short time back in New York, Maurer met Alfred Stieglitz, a renowned gallery owner and photographer, and exhibited his works in his gallery 291. Stieglitz, who in his time had a decisive influence on the artistic development of the USA by also presenting the European avant-garde here, became an important patron of Alfred Henry Maurer and brought him together with many important artists.
There was little continuity in Maurer's artistic development. He was a seeker who kept changing styles. His works can be assigned to Realism, Impressionism, Cubism and Fauvism. In later years he painted almost exclusively in the Cubist and Fauvist style. Very well known from this creative phase are for example his oil paintings "Landscape with red and blue" and "Two Sisters".
At the beginning of the First World War, Alfred Henry Maurer returned to the USA, where he lived a very secluded life in his parental home in New York and increasingly withdrew to his studio in the converted attic. Anyway, he was a very introverted person who had never married. Because he withdrew more and more from the public, the artist increasingly lacked an eye for new artistic tendencies. In the last 15 years of his life he therefore developed a predominantly monochrome Cubist style of painting, which no longer attracted much attention from the general public. To the declining success came the fact that at the same time his father, with whom Maurer was in a kind of artistic competition throughout his life, was suddenly "rediscovered" and attained greater artistic significance. When the father died, the son took his own life only a few weeks later.
Alfred Henry Maurer was born in Ney York and was the only child of German immigrants. After school he worked, like his father Louis Maurer, as a lithographer for Currier and Ives, a well-known New York art printing house. But he was also drawn to painting at an early age, so he studied at the National Academy of Design and then went to Paris for a few years, where he continued his studies mainly at the Louvre. His greatest role model at that time was James Abbott McNeill Whistler, a well-known American painter. Maurer's first award-winning painting "An Arrangement of 1901", therefore, shows clear references to Whistler in his painting style. For a short time back in New York, Maurer met Alfred Stieglitz, a renowned gallery owner and photographer, and exhibited his works in his gallery 291. Stieglitz, who in his time had a decisive influence on the artistic development of the USA by also presenting the European avant-garde here, became an important patron of Alfred Henry Maurer and brought him together with many important artists.
There was little continuity in Maurer's artistic development. He was a seeker who kept changing styles. His works can be assigned to Realism, Impressionism, Cubism and Fauvism. In later years he painted almost exclusively in the Cubist and Fauvist style. Very well known from this creative phase are for example his oil paintings "Landscape with red and blue" and "Two Sisters".
At the beginning of the First World War, Alfred Henry Maurer returned to the USA, where he lived a very secluded life in his parental home in New York and increasingly withdrew to his studio in the converted attic. Anyway, he was a very introverted person who had never married. Because he withdrew more and more from the public, the artist increasingly lacked an eye for new artistic tendencies. In the last 15 years of his life he therefore developed a predominantly monochrome Cubist style of painting, which no longer attracted much attention from the general public. To the declining success came the fact that at the same time his father, with whom Maurer was in a kind of artistic competition throughout his life, was suddenly "rediscovered" and attained greater artistic significance. When the father died, the son took his own life only a few weeks later.