Alfred Maurer
55.2 x 45.7 cm
Throughout his life, Maurer sought refuge from the city in nature, which extended to life in America after his return. The present work combines his two favorite activities, painting and fishing. Maurer biographer Elizabeth McCausland recorded his time spent in Westport with his friend Arthur Dove, highlighting the activity of fishing depicted in the present work: “At Westport Maurer found the fun and excitement which were lacking in his cabined existence in New York. He went fishing with Dove . . . Alfy carved and painted gilded beautiful casting plugs, a few of which survive.” And later: “The memory of simple, enduring, homely experiences persisted in Maurer’s transitional Abstraction: Fishing. Painted in oil…this recaptures the excitement the fisherman-artist felt as he saw the fish rise to his lure." [1]
After Maurer’s death, his work was collected by Hudson Walker, an art collector and dealer from Minneapolis who had an instrumental role in the founding of the Weisman Art Museum. He gifted much of his Maurer collection there. Hudson Walker was the grandson of T. B. Walker, founder of the Walker Art Gallery.
Provenance
The artist; toIone and Hudson D. Walker, New York;
[Babcock Galleries, Inc., New York];
Harris B. Steinberg, New York; to
[Sale: Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., March 4, 1970, lot 12]; to
[Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, New York, 1970]; to
Private collection, New York, 1970;
Estate of the above, 2021
Exhibitions
Horace Mann School, Riverdale, New York, Modern American Art Selected from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Harris B. Steinberg, April 2, 1962-[end of April], 1962, no. 12Finch College Museum of Art, Contemporary Wing, New York, Documentation, Sculpture—Painting—Drawing, October 15-November 24, 1968
Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, Alfred Maurer: From Aestheticism to Modernism, November 30, 1999-January 15, 2000
Literature
Harris B. Steinberg papers, 1960-1968, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian InstitutionElizabeth McCausland, A. H. Maurer, A Biography of America's First Modern Painter, New York: A. A. Wyn, Inc., 1951, p. 134, illus. p. 129
Stacey B. Epstein, Alfred H. Maurer: Aestheticism to Modernism, New York: Hollis Taggart Galleries, 1999, pp. 43, 152, illus. pl. 54
Stacey B. Epstein, "Alfred H. Maurer: Aestheticism to Modernism, 1897-1916," Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 2003, illus. fig. 108
Stacey B. Epstein, Alfred Maurer: At the Vanguard of Modernism, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2015, p. 144, illus.
Publications
Epstein, Stacey B. Alfred H. Maurer: Aestheticism to Modernism. New York: Hollis Taggart Galleries, 1999._____. Alfred Maurer: At the Vanguard of Modernism, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2015.
McCausland, Elizabeth. A. H. Maurer, A Biography of America's First Modern Painter, New York: A. A. Wyn, Inc., 1951.
