biography of Alexander SCHILLING (1859-1937)

Birth place: Chicago, IL

Addresses: NYC, since 1885

Profession: Landscape painter, etcher, teacher

Studied: G.S. Collis; H.A. Elkins, 1878.

Exhibited: NAD, 1886-95; Boston AC, 1886-99; AIC, 1889-1911; Paris Salon, 1889, 1892; Phila. AC, 1901 (gold); PAFA Ann., 1903; St. Louis Expo, 1904 (medal); SC, 1913 (prize).

Member: AWCS; NY Etching Club; SC; Century Assn.; Chicago AL (founder).

Work: MMA; Print Coll., NYPL

Comments: An important but lesser-known Tonalist landscape painter. During the early 1880s, he and John Vanderpoel organized outdoor painting classes, going first to the Muskoka Lakes in Ontario, and later to the Juniata and Lebanon Valley in PA. By December, 1885 he had established his studio in NYC. WW25 lists his address as Leonia, NJ and spells his name as "Schilling;" however, he had already changed the Germanic spelling of his name with the advent of WWI.

Sources: WW33; Alec J. Hammerslough, The Story of Alexander Shilling (Paisley Press, 1937); Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons, 389; Falk, Exh. Record Series.