Alfred Henry Maurer

by Nayvie Dizon on Feb 26, 2023

American artist Alfred Maurer was the first American painter to adopt a riotous Fauve palette and "primitive" forms. This balance between abstraction and representation pioneered new terrain for his American audience. For a painter who called light, color, and movement his basic subjects, it is perhaps surprising how little actual fieldwork and formal study of other visual artists Maurer undertook before the start of his career. The young American artist did travel to Europe for the first time in 1873 but confined himself to the Mediterranean and more temperate regions. Maurer's first years as an art student were spent in Berlin with Karl Piloty and then in Munich with Ludwig von Losen. Soon he established connections with many contemporary artists and writers including Johann Heinrich Schmidl, Eduard Böcking, Anton Burger, Karl von Piloty, Max Liebermann, Christian Rohlfs.