John Alexander (artist)

John Alexander (born 1945 Beaumont, Texas) is a modern American painter who currently resides in New York. Alexander studied art at Lamar University in Beaumont and Southern Methodist University in Dallas. After teaching at the University of Houston from 1971 to 1978, he moved to New York. (Tennant, Houston Chronicle, 2003).

John Alexander’s work is influenced by his affection for the southern landscape. In an essay for the book One World, Two Artists, John Alexander and Walter Anderson, Bradley Sumrall, chief curator of the Ogden Museum, wrote: “Alexander moves easily from transcendent observation of his spiritual home (Ten Mile Bayou or The Mighty Bog), to casual observation of a meal served to him in Spain (Blue Langoustine). Even though he has lived in the Northeast since 1979, the landscape of southeast Texas still informs his view of the world around him.” This deep love of land is mingled with satirical and scathing portraits that parody social, environmental, and political dysfunction. “Those [childhood] experiences inspired not only Alexander’s reverence for the natural world, but his sorrow over its degradation and his contempt for those responsible.” (Hann, Art & Antiques, 2008).

A recent painting called Lost Souls depicts Alexander’s cast of characters; various masked politicians, religious figures, skeletons, monkeys, and creatures, adrift in stormy waters.

Alexander’s work ranges from the beautiful to the macabre: “...studies of fish are like something out of a textbook, massive abstract canvases like I’ve Been Living in a Hydrogen Bomb, and gorgeous, brightly colored pictures like Melon Fields, look as though they could be by three different artists, yet underlying all of them is Alexander’s keen insight into the world” (Cavanaugh, dcist, 2007).

Alexander’s thick paint and forceful linework is often described as having a rich, physical quality, and is the unifying trait throughout his work.

John Alexander’s work can be found in the permanent collections of a number of museums, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC; the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; the Hirshhorn Museum, DC; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Meadows Museum, Dallas; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, as well as other public and private collections worldwide. Alexander was a 2013 recipient of the Guild Hall Lifetime Achievement Award.

John Alexander is the creator of the Crystal Head Vodka skull bottle, and is a coowner of the company with actor and comedian Dan Aykroyd.

References

(1)http://www.johnalexanderstudios.com/ (2)http://www.johnalexanderreviews.net

External links

1. http://www.johnalexanderstudios.com 2. http://www.johnalexanderreviews.net 3. http://www.crystalheadvodka.com