Alfred Maurer: The First American Modern

The young Alfred Maurer was the Thomas Kinkade of his day, churning out proper and commercially appealing paintings that earned him lots of money and fans–until he started cavorting around Paris! It was only when he met up with those pesky French that he discovered modernism and threw away all his popular success. This exhibit chronicles Maurer’s passionate exploration of Cubism, Fauvism, Impressionism, and his own unfettered creative impulses, through the forty paintings on view. It’s obvious that the painter found true joy in the freedoms of modernism. Sadly, the masses did not, and Maurer died a relative unknown, never regaining the success of his youth. Of course, like a few other lucky-unlucky artists, he’s come to be appreciated posthumously–at least by those whose tastes are, we’d like to think, more discerning than Thomas Kinkade’s. 333 East River Rd., Minneapolis; 612-625-9494; www.weisman.umn.edu