Alexander Brook

Alexander Brook with Betty Spencer
Writing the Family Letter, mural, 1939. Currently in the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building

Alexander Brook (July 14, 1898 – February 26, 1980) was an American artist and critic.

He was born in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of twelve he was bed-ridden with polio. It was during this time that he received his first lessons in painting.[1] In 1914 he entered the Art Students League, where he studied for four years. There he met the painter Peggy Bacon, whom he married in 1920.

During his twenties, Brooks painted still lifes and posed figures with vigor and sensuality. He later began to emulate the style of Jules Pascin.[2] From 1924–27 he was the assistant director of Whitney Studio Club.[3] His realist painting was exhibited widely and he won multiple awards.[2] Children's Lunch won the Frank G Logan prize in Chicago in 1929 and Georgia Jungle won the Carnegie Prize at the Carnegie International art exhibition in 1939. Unfortunately for Brook, the realist style fell out of favor late in the 1940s.[2]

About 1940, he was divorced from Peggy Bacon. After a second marriage and spells living in Savannah, he married in 1945 his third wife, the painter Gina Knee. In 1948 they moved to Sag Harbor on eastern Long Island, where he retired from painting around 1965.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Love, Richard H.; Peters, Carl William (1999). Carl W. Peters: American scene painter from Rochester to Rockport. University Rochester Press. p. 369. ISBN 978-1-58046-024-8.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Morgan, Ann Lee (2007). The Oxford dictionary of American art and artists. Oxford reference online. Oxford University Press US. pp. 25–26. ISBN 0-19-512878-8.
  3. ↑ Strickler, Susan E.; Hutton, William (1979). American paintings, the Toledo Museum of Art. The Museum. p. 26.

External links

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