Alexander Pope was an American painter and carving artist. He was recognized for his sporting pieces of art, mostly still lifes made in trompe l'oeil style and depicting trophy animals and hunter attributes in the interior of wooden crates.
He also produced sculptures for some period of his lifetime.
Background
Alexander Pope was born on March 25, 1849, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, United States. He was a son of Alexander Pope and Charlotte Caldwell Cushing.
He began to reveal his passion for art at the late 1860s. A young man, Alexander produced sketches and carvings of animals he saw around his home.
Education
Alexander Pope learned carving, painting, perspective, and anatomy from a Romantic painter and sculptor William Rimmer.
To a large extent, Alexander was an autodidact artist.
Career
Alexander Pope started to work in his family lumber business in the late 1860s staying close to home during the American Civil War. It was at that time when he realized that he was more interested in the career of an artist.
Two collections of chromolithographs made after his watercolor paintings appeared in 1878 and 1882. Their titles were ‘Upland Game Birds and Water Fowl of the United States’ and ‘Celebrated Dogs of America’. This period, the artist worked on multiple carvings of game or trompe l’oeil still lifes. A couple of such works was purchased by Czar Alexander III.
From 1893, Pope concentrated on animal portraits and continued as a portraitist.