Alfred Maurer Died Without Approval from His Father or the Artistic World

Here is Alfred Maurer's father, Louis Maurer (1832-1932). Maurer had immigrated from Germany in 1851 with his family and immediately went to work in the arts continuing until his ultimate retirement in 1884. At that time he dedicated himself to his hobbies. Not surprisingly that included painting but it also involved riding horses and shooting. He was a crack shot and at the age of ninety was the only one to receive a perfect score at a match.

He died on July 19, 1932. The biographies of both him and his son Alfred tell of his disapproval of his son's adopting the new modern painting styles from Europe. After Alfred's return to the United States in 1914 Alfred continued to paint in all of the new styles and still live with his father, dependent but not accepted, a dynamic that left Alfred at the point of suicide shortly after his father's death. What turmoil his life must have been like for more than fifteen years, living with a disapproving father yet knowing he needed to be true to his artistic soul. And what soul it was. Here is a series of his paintings (chronologically from 1903 through 1930's) showing those many styles. Who was his muse? It seems we'll never know. Even today after many retrospectives, Alfred's work is under appreciated and fading into our country's past.