Alfred Henry Maurer

Alfred Henry Maurer (1868-1932), American painter, and a pioneer in the development of American modern art. While Maurer's early works were influenced by European art movements such as fauvism and cubism, his mature works expressed a personal style in their abstract renderings of the human face.

Maurer was born in New York City. He worked in his family’s lithographic business and studied art at the National Academy of Design. In 1897 he moved to Paris, France. Four years later, Maurer won the first prize and gold medal at the international exhibit of the Carnegie Institute, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for his Whistlerian Arrangement (now on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City). In 1907 Maurer became one of the first American artists to embrace fauvism, a stylistic movement in painting distinguished by vigorous lines and emotionally charged colors. He introduced American abstract painter Arthur Garfield Dove to fauvism. In 1909 Maurer held his first one-man exhibition at the Photo-Secession Gallery in New York City. After the exhibition Maurer returned to Paris, but he was forced to return to the United States at the outbreak of World War I (1914-1919). After returning to the United States, Maurer led a solitary life in his father’s residence. Two weeks after his father died at the age of 100, Maurer committed suicide.