Alexander Brook: A Savannah Cotton Row Painter

A Brook painting of a scene in Savannah Called Savannah Chickens and Shacks

Alexander Brook was born in Brooklyn, New York, on July 14, 1898. He was the youngest child of Russian immigrants. At the age of twelve, Brook contracted polio and was bedridden for almost one year. This year would find him dropping out of school and beginning to start a self-education program. In 1915 he enrolled in the Art Students League. His time there was filled with close friendships and the artist Peggy Bacon his first wife.
 
In 1923 he met Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and helped to organize the first exhibit at the Whitney Studio Club. He continued to work under Juliana Force the director of the club for three years  (1924-1927). The club would become the Whitney Museum of Art in 1931. He won awards from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie International Exhibition (he won second prize losing to Pablo Picasso). He received a Guggenheim Fellowship that allowed him to travel to Europe. Upon returning from Europe he taught at the Art Students League for four years.
 
In 1938 Brook first came to Savannah. He lived here in a former cotton warehouse (that also housed his studio) on the Savannah River. He would maintain this studio for ten years. He painted scenes from Yamacraw Village. One of the paintings Georgia Jungle was awarded first prize at the Carnegie International exhibition. Pablo Picasso was not available that year. Throughout his career, Brook tended to favor melancholy subjects saying, “I find . . . that I am more concerned, both sympathetically and aesthetically with the simpler and sadder things about me.” This interest is reflected in the dark palette of grays and browns that Brook often used to convey emotion in his paintings. 
 
 
In 1940 he divorced Peggy Bacon and returned to Savannah with his new wife Libby Berger. This marriage ended to and he returned to New York teaching at his alma mater, the Art Students League. In 1944, one would assume much to the amusement of the Savannahians, he returned with his third wife, artist Gina Knee. It was during this time that an art colony of sorts was established on River Street. Painters such as Andre Ruellen and Hattie Saussy were in the mix. Brooks and Knee continued to exhibit in New York and California. They also became avid supporters of the theater and library in Savannah.
Brook painted many portraits and genre scenes for his own pleasure as well as commissioned paintings during his time in Georgia. Brook exhibited his work here in Savannah. He also produced two covers for the Saturday Evening Post.  In 1948 Knee switched from water colors to paint with oils. She enjoyed the ability to correct her brushstrokes and start [re-dos]. She wrote oils ‘allowed her new ways to explore texture, color and brushstrokes that she no longer felt "in tune with watercolor painting at all when I attempt it."
The couple left Savannah in 1948 and purchased a home at Sag Harbor on eastern Long Island, New York, where they lived for the rest of their lives. Brook died in 1980. Brook's work is found in numerous museum collections, including Telfair Museums, Morris Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art Butler Institute of American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and not surprisingly the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Brook, Knee, Bacon, Saussy, Ruellen all have works in the Telfair Museums. They were all involved in the heady times of the Cotton Row Painters of Savannah. As discussed in the last blog William Scharf would take over Brook’s studio continuing the creative intellectual times of the Cotton Row Painters with such people as Augusta Oeschlig and Pulitzer Prize winner for literature Conrad Aiken.

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A painting found in the Telfair Museum's collection by Brook of Savannah Street Scene

A print in Telfair Museum's Collection by Peggy Bacon Brook's first wife he brought to Savannah