Maxine albro biography

Maxine Albro was.
Maxine Albro (January 20, 1893 – July 19, 1966) was an American painter, muralist, lithographer, mosaic artist, and sculptor.
Maxine Albro was an American painter, muralist, lithographer, mosaic artist, and sculptor.

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Biography

Born in a small town in Iowa, Maxine Albro grew up in Los Angeles, where her father sold pianos. At 17, she moved to San Francisco and worked as a commercial artist before enrolling at the California School of Fine Arts from 1923-1925. She continued her art education at the Art Students League in New York in 1926, where she learned lithography. The following year she attended the Ecole de la Grand Chaumière in Paris. Following this formal training, she traveled to Mexico to see Diego Rivera and learned fresco technique from Rivera's assistant Paul O'Higgins. Returning to San Francisco, she exhibited her paintings and began to receive mural commissions, including a major one for the Coit Tower.

Albro married Parker Hall, an artist who had also worked on the Coit Tower murals. Hall was primarily a wood carver and sculptor, and the couple travelled extensively throughout their marriage, particularly to Mexico. The influence of Mexico, in general, and Rivera, in particular, permeates much of Albro's work.

Critical Analysis

Albro's Coit Tower mural "California Agricu

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The Water Carriers, c. 1930s

30 x 26 inches | oil on canvas

BIOGRAPHY

Maxine Albro was born on January 20th, 1903 in Iowa. Her family was from a Spanish background. Albro did not live in Iowa for long and moved to Los Angeles with her family while she was still very young. As a result, most of her upbringing took place in California. Moreover, in 1920, Maxine Albro graduated from high school and moved to San Francisco, CA.

While in San Francisco, Albro worked as a commercial artist in order to raise money for her formal art training. After saving sufficient funds, Albro enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco from 1923 to 1925. The following year, Albro spent one winter at the Art Student League in New York. Her studies did not end there, in fact, shortly after she completed her schooling in New York, Albro studied for a year at the Ecole de la Grand Chaumière in Paris in 1927.

After completing her formal art education, Albro took a trip to Mexico where she learned how to paint frescos. Although Albro did not study directly with Dieg

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Object Details

interviewee: Albro, Maxine, 1903-1966
interviewer: McChesney, Mary Fuller
Subject: Hall, Parker; Bertrand, Raymond; Gaethke, George; Neininger, Urban; O'Higgins, Pablo; Rivera, Diego; Stackpole, Ralph; Zakheim, Bernard Baruch; Allied Artists Guild; Federal Art Project (Calif.); New Deal and the Arts Oral History Project

Place of publication, production, or execution: California
Physical Description: 44 Pages, Transcript
General Note: Originally recorded on 1 sound tape reel. Reformatted in 2010 as 2 digital wav files. Duration is 1 hrs., 26 min.
Access Note / Rights: Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Summary: An interview of Maxine Albro and Parker Hall conducted by Mary McChesney on 1964 July 27 for the Archives of American Art.; Albro speaks of her educational background including her work with Paul O'Higgins and as an assistant to Diego Rivera; of fresco and mosaic techniques; her mural at Coit Tower for the Public Works of Art Project; mosaics at San Francisco State College; her relationship with George Gaethke, Urban Nein