Alexander Brook
(1898-1980)
Alexander Brook was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1898. He studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1914 to 1918. Brook associated with many of the artists on the New York art scene, including Niles Spencer, Reginald Marsh, and Peggy Bacon, whom he married in 1920. Brook became a member of the Society of Independent Artists, which rebelled against the constraints set by the National Academy of Design. He found much success with his artwork, and in 1930 Brook won second prize (to Picasso’s first prize) at the Carnegie Institute International Exhibition of Modern Painting. From 1928 to 1939, Brook showed his work in over one hundred exhibitions. Fifteen of these were solo shows. In 1940 he was acknowledged by Life magazine as “one of America’s best painters.” Shortly after this, with the rise of Abstract Expressionism, Brook retreated from the art world. His work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Alexander Brook died in Long Island, New York in 1980.