Father Pitt

Tag: Alexander (John White)

  • A Rainy Day? Let’s Visit the Museum

    Entrance to the Carnegie Museum

    A rainy November afternoon is the perfect time to spend an hour or two in the art museum. Here are a few of the things you might see if you visited the Carnegie right now.

    Aurora Leigh

    Aurora Leigh, by John White Alexander, 1904: an imaginative portrait of the heroine of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s verse novel. Alexander’s last and greatest work was the decoration of the Grand Staircase in the Carnegie, so you’ll have a chance to see those murals, too.

    Sunrise Synchromy in Violet

    Sunrise Synchromy in Violet, by Stanton Macdonald-Wright, 1918.

    Rue de L’Abreuvoir, by Maurice Utrillo, 1911

    Rue de L’Abreuvoir, by Maurice Utrillo, 1911.

    Harbor Mole, by Lionel Feininger, 1923

    Harbor Mole, by Lionel Feininger, 1923.

    Rue de Beaujour, Pontoise, by Camille Possarro, 1872

    Rue de Beaujour, Pontoise, by Camille Pissarro, 1872.

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  • Grand Staircase in the Carnegie

    The Grand Staircase is the heart of the old Carnegie Institute building, and no expense was spared in making it lavishly artistic. The murals are by John White Alexander, a Pittsburgh native who was in his day almost as well regarded as John Singer Sargent.

  • John White Alexander

    A good number of artists have been born in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area, and some of them even have large museums here dedicated to their works. (Father Pitt is thinking, of course, of the John A Hermann, Jr., Memorial Art Museum in Bellevue. What were you thinking of?) But we could argue that the one who made the most lasting contribution to the city of his own free will was John White Alexander, whose mural composition Apotheosis of Pittsburgh covers thousands of square feet in the splendid Grand Staircase in the Carnegie. Alexander was born in Allegheny in 1856, and the Grand Staircase was his last significant work, so we can say that he began and ended his work here. A rather fawning (but perhaps justifiably so) 1908 article in The International Studio describes the high position he had reached in the world of art, and gives us good monochrome reproductions of a number of Alexander’s works, especially portraits. Here is an album of those pictures, in tribute to one of Pittsburgh’s great artists.

    Portrait of Mrs. H.

    Portrait of Fritz (Frits) Thaulow.

    Portrait: Sisters.

    Portrait of Walt Whitman.

    Portrait of Miss R.

    Pen Sketch of Mark Twain.

    Portrait of Miss B.

    Portrait of Mrs. R.

    Fragment of Decoration, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh.