Alexander Brook New York (1898-1980) Reclining Semi Nude Woman charcoal on paper signed lower right. Biography from the Archives of askART: The following was written and submitted by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher from Laguna Woods, California. Alexander Brook was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 14, 1898. At the age of sixteen Brook was painting ancient statuary at Pratt Institute, after a bout of polio that fortunately left no traces. At the age of seventeen he enrolled at the Art Students League where in time he became a member of the faculty. Life became a series of successes. He won second prize to Picasso's first prize at the Carnegie Institute International Exhibitioon of Modern Painting in 1930. Brook had close and congenial friends in painters Niles Spencer, Louis Bouche and Peggy Bacon, whom he married in 1920. Until the tidal wave of abstract art inundated the galleries, no show of contemporary American art seemed complete without an Alexander Brook. But abstract art took over and Brook was out of the public eye. He was a lusty personality who used a lyric brush to paint the tender, not the dramatic, side of life. His colors were subdued and subtly graded. Brook was a brawny, barrel-shaped man who was up at dawn each morning for a full day of puttering and painting. He and Peggy Bacon were divorced in 1940. He was remarried later to the painter Gina Knee and his wife accompanied him wherever he painted. He died in 1980. Sources include: Time Magazine, August 2, 1962 Life Magazine (date unknown) 10" x 13 1/2" (sight), 14 1/2" x 19 1/4" (mat)