John White Alexander: Studies in Europe

"Portrait of Mrs. John White Alexander"
by John White Alexander

"John White Alexander remained for about three years with Harper & Brothers. Having saved up $300, he and a friend sailed from Philadelphia for Liverpool. After a short time spent in London, they went to Paris, where they were disappointed to find the Ecole des Beaux Art, which they expected to enter, closed for repairs. His friend suggested that, as he knew a few words of German - neither of them knew a word of French - they should go to Munich.

In Munich Alexander studied for about three months, in the class of Professor Benzcur at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. Although he earned some income by sending drawings back to Harper's, the expense of living in the city was comparatively high. Also Alexander was not in sympathy with the severe and academic method of the school, so he decided to go to Polling where there was at that time a small colony of American artists, among others J. Frank Currier, Walter L. Shirlaw, Joseph De Camp and Ross Turner. There Alexander first started to paint. 

He sent, at the suggestion of Professor Benzcur, some of his drawings to the Students' Exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and was awarded a bronze medal, his first honor. After leaving Polling, Alexander joined a class of art students, which Frank Duveneck had arranged to take to Florence and teach. Duveneck and Alexander went ahead to find studios, and in the course of a month, the others, numbering twenty-three in all, joined them in Florence, where they spent two winters.

Summers were spent in Venice, where Alexander first met James McNeil Whistler, who was them making the series of Venetian etchings which have since become so famous. He was working one day with his easel up when a stranger came and looked over his shoulder and made some criticism of his work. It proved to be Whistler, and the the acquaintance which developed into a warm and lifelong friendship dated from that day."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "John White Alexander: A Biographical Sketch" by H.M.B. for "The American Magazine of Art.")