Alfred Maurer, “The Florentines”, 1929, Oil on Canvas on Plaster Board, The Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Around 1919, Alfred Maurer began two series, “Girls” and “Heads”, to which he would return until the end of his life. He adopted a relatively standard format, positioning his sitters alone or in small groups, most often in a simple frontal pose and three-quarter length. The series progresses from fairly representational and naturalistic depictions to more stylized and abstractions renderings. Although they tend to have generic features, they were based on models.

Influenced by a general return-to-order in the postwar years, these paintings convey classicism in both their traditional subject and their calm approach to figuration. They reconnect to the realist paintings that had originally established Alfred Maurer’s reputation, but incorporate a range of primitive, Renaissance, and modernist influences. Critics considered them as “modern madonnas” and noted their Byzantine elongations of the female body.Their deliberate awkwardness was celebrated as a powerful interpretation of non-Western masks and carvings.