Education
Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.
Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.
The New York Herald described Henry Alexander as one of the creators of the modern school of art Aside from a few trompe-l"oeil paintings, his paintings generally depict individuals within highly detailed interiors. He also painted Chinese and Japanese subjects.
He left San Francisco for New York City on April 15, 1887, in order to be at the center of the art world, but he suffered from money troubles and alcoholism.
He had a studio at 51 West Tenth Street. The other artists in the building avoided him, because he was always trying to borrow money.
On May 15, 1894, his money troubles led him to commit suicide by swallowing oxalic acid in the Oriental Hotel at Broadway and Thirty-Ninth Street. Morning Prayer
Sunday Afternoon
Lost Genius
First Lesson
Neglecting Business (Playing Chess), 1887 (now in the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco)
The Letter Home
Lesson in Gunning
The Cap Makers (as of 1892, in the collection of Thomas Doctorate Clark)
Sunday Morning (as of 1892, in the collection of Thomas Doctorate Clark)
Interesting Game (as of 1892, in the collection of Thomas Doctorate Clark)
The Hebrew Orphan Asylum (the painter"s favorite)
In the Laboratory (painted 1885-1887.
A portrait of the San Francisco assayer Thomas Price.
In the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, purchased 1939, item number 3946).