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.
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.
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.
Alexander Pope is regarded as one of the most prominent trompe l'oeil artists whose works as the works of other still life painters helped to promote still life genre in American art of the late nineteenth century.
Nowadays, his heritage is included in such public collections as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the White House, the Brooklyn Museum, the M.H. De Young Memorial Museum and the National Museum of Wildlife Art.
In 2016, a painting by Pope titled ‘Trophies of The Hunt’ was purchased at Sotheby's in New York City for $370,000.
Emblems of the Civil War
Weapons of War
A Pair of Setters
Hanging Pheasants
Sportsman's Still Life
Successful Hunter
Still Life with Mallards
Japanese Chin and Goldfish
Trophies of the Hunt
Springer Spaniel with Pheasant
Just from Town
In Charge
The Trumpeter Swan
Sheep in Field
Hanging Ducks
Still Life of Macaw, Chinese Vase and Fruit
Still Life. Hunting Trophies - Red Fox Skin
The Fox - Fair Game
A Hunter's Still Life
At the Kennel Door
After the Hunt
Alexander Pope married Alice de Wolf Downer on September 16, 1873.
