John White Alexander

John White Alexander moved to New York at the age of eighteen and began working as an office boy atHarper's Weekly,where he was promoted to illustrator in 1875. Two years later he enrolled at the Royal Academy in Munich, and from 1879 to 1881, he traveled and studied with Frank Duveneck in Italy. Upon returning to New York, he resumed work as an illustrator and also painted portraits. From 1881 to 1889, Alexander was an instructor of drawing at Princeton University. During this period he also traveled to North Africa, England, and many other countries. In 1890 he moved to Paris, where he exhibited with the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and was later elected a member. In 1895 he was commissioned to paint a mural for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. , and in 1905 he received a commission for a mural at the Carnegie Institute. Alexander was a member of many art associations and won numerous awards for his work, including the Lippincott Prize at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1899, the Gold Medal of Honor at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900, and the Medal of the First Class at the Carnegie Institute International Exhibition in 1911.Joann MoserSingular Impressions: The Monotype in America(Washington, D.C. and London: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1997)