Alfred Maurer: Art on the Edge

Considered one of the first Americans to adopt French Fauvism and one of the most versatile American Modernists, Alfred H. Maurer (1868–1932) tirelessly pushed the boundaries of artistic expression throughout his career. This exhibition features 65 of Maurer’s most accomplished works, highlighting the artist’s singular contributions to American painting in the early twentieth century. Maurer spent nearly 17 years in Paris, where he was introduced to French avant-garde art through his friendships with major collectors, dealers, and artists. Throughout his long career he maintained a steady interest in certain themes and in formal experimentation with color, form, and abstraction. The exhibition surveys Maurer’s career from fin-de-siècle figure paintings, scenes of contemporary leisure, Fauvist works, landscapes and florals, heads and figures, and still lifes, to late Cubist abstractions. The diversity and virtuosity of the works illustrate the extent to which Maurer was a formidable creative force in expanding the potential for artistic expression in American art.

Alfred Maurer: Art on the Edge was organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts and co-curated by independent scholar Dr. Stacey Epstein and Addison curator Susan Faxon. Generous support for this national exhibition and publication was provided by The Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts, Inc., Wyeth Foundation for American Art, The Maurer Family Foundation, Mary L. Craven, The Karen and Kevin Kennedy Foundation, the Keamy Family Foundation in memory of Yvonne and Donald Keamy, and the Sidney R. Knafel Fund.

The publication accompanying this exhibition, Alfred Maurer: At the Vanguard of Modernism, authored by Stacey Epstein and published by the Addison Gallery of American Art, is available for purchase from Crystal Bridges’ Museum Store, or may be ordered from Yale University Press.

Avis Bailey and Charles and Shannon Holley