Park, 1980, acrylic on canvas, signed and dated lower right, 32 x 48 inches, inscribed verso “Alfred P. Maurice, 2725 A South Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL, 60616, ‘Park”, labeled verso “Maurice 002”, exhibited: Chicago- An Exhibition of Paintings, Photographs, and Sounds by Alfred P. Maurice, A. Montgomery Ward Gallery, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, March 29 to April 9 1982, #18, the Hartmann Center Gallery, Bradley University, Peoria, IL, unknown dates, and the Anderson Art Center, Anderson, IN, October, 1983
Alfred Paul Maurice was a 20th Century American painter, print maker, muralist, photographer, art professor and administrator. A New Hampshire native, Maurice began work as a professional artist in 1939 and 1940 as a mural painter for the National Youth Administration of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). At the age of eighteen, Maurice and fellow artist Raymond Pinet completed a twenty-foot-long mural in Nashua, New Hampshire, depicting colonial farmers leaving their fields to join the minutemen during the American War of Independence. After high school, Maurice studied art at the University of New Hampshire. During World War II, he served in the US Army Air Corps as an illustrator-draftsman in the Pacific Theater. Following the war with support from the GI Bill, Maurice received Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees from Michigan State University.
Initially, Maurice became best known as a print maker when he exhibited in the late 1940s and early 1950s at the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Print Club Print National, the Audubon Artists Annual, and the Michigan Artists Exhibit. In addition to his fine art practice, Maurice worked as an art professor or administrator at Macalester College (1947-49), State University of New York at New Paltz (1950 – 1957), Maryland Institute College of Art (1957- 1959), Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (1960 – 1965), and University of Illinois at Chicago (1965 - 1986), where he served as the Chairman of the Art Department and Professor (and Professor Emeritus) of Art and Design. In 1977, he left administrative duties behind to teach and allow more time for his creative pursuits.
In the late 1970s through the 1990s, Maurice’s practice focused on Neo Immaculate paintings, drawings and prints of Chicago, San Francisco and other places he lived and visited. These works were the subject of solo exhibitions at A. Montgomery Ward Gallery, University of Illinois at Chicago (1982), the Archer Gallery of Art of Clark College (1997), and the Cannon Gallery of Art (Western Oregon University) (2020).
Maurice also had solo exhibitions in New York (Three Arts Gallery), Maryland (Vagabond Theatre), Michigan (Central Michigan University, Civic Theatre, Kalamazoo, MI, Art Center, Kalamazoo, and Michigan State University), Illinois (Hartmann Center Gallery, Bradley University, Chicago Public Library Cultural Center, Joy Horwich Gallery, 3 Illinois Center and R.H. Love Galleries), and Oregon (Comus Gallery). His works were included in national juried group exhibitions, including at the Butler Institute of American Art, the National Pastel Society, the National Society of Painters in Casein and Acrylic, the Coos Art Museum, the Pratt Graphic Arts Center, the Audubon Artists Annual, and the National Arts Club. From these exhibitions, Maurice earned numerous awards for artistic achievement, including: The 30th Annual Dr. David Soletsky Award from the National Society of Artists in Casein and Acrylics, The Medal of Honor for Graphics from Audubon Artist’s Annual in New York, the 32nd Annual Marion de Sola Mendes Memorial Award from the National Society of Painters in Casein and Acrylic and the Reginald L. Dellow Award at the 16th Union League Club Competition and Exhibition.
Throughout his long career, Maurice collected and wrote about art, in particular prints and printmakers. Later in life, Maurice moved to the Pacific Northwest - Vancouver, Washington, and later Monmouth, Oregon, where he served as Visiting Professor at Western Oregon University. In 2016, Maurice established prizes for students at the University of New Hampshire and Western Oregon University. His works are in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), the Anderson Art Center, the Kalamazoo Institute of Art, and the Portland Museum of Art, as well as other institutions.
