The Forgotten Artist William "Bill" Alexander E-Book

Jörg-Michael Müller

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 210

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Well, you really don't know the painter William "Bill" Alexander? His biography reads like a novel and is for this book extensively probably researched for the first time! He was a charming "fox" who survived two world wars and lived years in North America with his VW bus as a traveling artist. He wanted to do something good for people. His life was a big adventure, his end was dramatic. Born in Berlin 1915 and later emigrated to North America, he became famous as a TV painter with own television show. Only 30 minutes Alexander needed for a complete oil painting, and he also taught his students. Thanks to the brillant "Alexander painting technique" that he developed himself, anyone can paint like this. And his method is still used and taught by teachers around the globe today. But the worldwide fame for this absolutely ingenious technique went to another: His student Bob Ross. Urgently overdue to remember this warmhearted artist. Let's accompany William "Bill" Alexander on his exciting journey.

Leseprobe

“Life is a big, blank canvas, and we fill it up ourselves with the magic of our lives. Each of us comes to the canvas to create that one special almighty painting. For some it is easy; for others, it is not. For me, it has been a long journey.”

William “Bill”Alexander, 19831)

Originally this book was only planned in German language. However, I received several requests written in English as to whether I could translate this book into English, as there is obviously not a single comprehensive biography of William Alexander in the world. That generally sounded like a very good idea to me. However, I must point out that my English is just as improvable as William's was! Despite the greatest effort and care, you will definitely encounter typos and inelegant wording here that are not present in the German version. I ask that you treat this with indulgence and hope that you enjoy the exciting life story of William “Bill” Alexander.

Jorg-Michael Muller, 03. Januar 2024

Table of contents

About hidden springs in the fog and small strokes of luck

A childhood full of deprivation in East Prussia

As a frontline soldier in the Second World War

Across the pond

We need to talk about it for a moment: “Happy bucks” and “lousy bucks”

The long road to becoming a “Happy Painter”

The story of William and his foster son “SandyBandy”

An artists' colony is created

The ingenious “Alexander painting technique”

The big dreams finally come true

“The Magic of Oil Painting”

Paradise at the end of Highway 101

William Alexander and his student Bob Ross

The drama begins

The last big projects, and Bill's worst mistake

Thinking outside the box – Bill’s “master series”

The last years

Epilogue

Sources and explanations

About hidden springs in the fog and small strokes of luck

William “Bill” Alexander, the artist who was born in Berlin and emigrated to North America, developed the ingenious “Alexander painting technique” with which he was able to create complex oil paintings in a very short time. As a TV painter with his own show, he became famous throughout the country, and his painting technique is still used today by enthusiastic people around the world. All over the globe, countless painting teachers still earn their living with this technique, and the sale of the special paints and brushes was and still is a million-dollar business. However, William Alexander was forgotten after his death; hardly anyone in German-speaking countries knows him anyway. The worldwide fame for the ingenious “Alexander painting technique” went to someone else. His student and former employee Bob Ross. It is urgently overdue to remember this artist. He was a charming rascal and a filou who survived two world wars and traveled around North America and Canada as a traveling artist in his VW bus for decades, until he was discovered in the early 1970s and became a celebrated star. He dreamed of a better tomorrow, loved nature and people. Throughout his life he spoke out against greed and war. His life was winding, sometimes dramatic. Especially his last years, and his adventurous biography reads as excitingly as a novel.

When I first started researching William Alexander, it wasn't very difficult to put together information about him. There was a documentary2) from 1983 about William and also an autobiography.3) Many details were also learned by carefully watching the individual episodes of his TV show.4) Today you can almost only find them on YouTube. But at a certain point the research suddenly stopped and there were no further sources available. From his childhood onwards, through his time as a Wehrmacht soldier, his life could be told, albeit incompletely. Much of the winding path to his breakthrough remains obscure. Until 1992, he was known to an audience of millions in North America through his TV shows; little is known about his private life. But then everything suddenly became completely quiet around him, and the last years of his life were completely in a fog. According to online sources, he is said to have lived in a difficult-to-access town called Powell River5’ until his death. But that is already wrong. Only the date of his death could be determined without any doubt, January 24, 1997. His burial place also raises questions. A source says he is in the cemetery in Powell River. However, other sources claim, he was buried in Port Albemi6’. At the end, both are not true. His grave is not in either cemetery, and when I delved into the research it was completely unclear whether his grave could even be located. The more I dug, the more unanswered questions and inconsistencies emerged. In the end, this biography would have remained almost unsatisfactorily incomplete, if chance had not come to the rescue, so that I can now tell his entire dramatic life story.

As a matter of routine, I first wrote to all the cemeteries in question and asked for information as to whether the painter William Alexander was buried there. I received a response from Powell River within just a few hours. It was true, the person in question is not in their cemetery, a friendly employee of cemetery administration told me. But I received the address of a funeral home. Maybe, according to the lady, they could help me there. So I sent the undertaker my request, which was also answered after a few hours. I was informed that the person in question was not buried by the company, but the employee checked the central register and copied Mr. Alexander's death certificate for me. I could not believe my eyes. In Germany this would be absolutely impossible for data protection reasons, but in Canada the clocks seem to tick differently. This official document was extremely helpful, but the highlight of the whole thing was that the death certificate was signed by a relative of William Alexander, who was completely unknown to me until then. He had a daughter, that is documented. According to this document, there was also a foster son. Sometimes luck helps the brave, as I actually managed to locate this foster son somewhere in the depths of Canada. I explained my concerns to the 74-year-old and he was actually willing to answer all of my countless questions. We exchanged ideas for months, and without him it would not have been possible to tell the exciting life story of William “Bill” Alexander with all its facets.

04.01. 2024, Jorg-Michael Muller

A childhood full of deprivation in East Prussia

William Alexander's family (he was born with the name Wilhelm) lived in that time in sparsely populated East Prussia. At these days, when noble landowners such as the Counts of Dohna,7) those of Finckenstein8) or Döhnhoff9) ruled there. Agriculture made them rich and powerful, and East Prussia was a bulging granary. The large and stately two-story manor houses still bear witness to the former wealth of the “blue-blooded people,” as the simple rural people derisively called the rural and moneyed nobility. Of course, the common people, around three-quarters of whom worked in agriculture and were therefore directly dependent on the nobility, lived much more modestly. Their houses were small and one-story, they usually only had a simple clay floor, a small cooking area, a sparse oven, and they usually used sacks filled with straw to sleep on after a hard day. The Alexander family lived in a village called Rautenberg,10) consisting of a collection of around three dozen small, mainly one-story houses. There was a small train station with a single track in the direction of Tilsit, which is around 40 kilometers away, a blacksmith, a hairdresser, a saddler, a small school, on the upper floor of which the teacher also lived. There was also a post office, a church and a small shop for the essentials: sugar, salt, pepper and flour. That was it already. There was no real doctor, there was no pharmacy, no cobbler and certainly no electricity. Electricity did not reach Rautenberg until 1927, and the generator that produced the electricity for the sparse street lighting was from then on looked after by the local blacksmith. There was an old police officer there, but it was a rough time with tough guys back then. And if there was a dispute between the neighbors, for example because one of them moved the boundary stone to the neighboring property a little in his favor, then they usually settled it directly among themselves. With your fists or with a shotgun. That's how it was back then. There wasn't much of a fuss about it. If someone in the village was „shot down," as William reported many years later, there would simply be one fewer of them there in the future.

Already in those days, modern agricultural techniques were being developed in East Prussia, which were partly responsible for the high agricultural yields. William's father, also called Wilhelm, worked as a construction manager at the time and implemented these techniques. At times, up to 200 workers were under his command and they built the most modern drainage systems and pumps to remove water from the moors11) and thus gain new arable land. They also built paths and canals and cleaned the rivers. The mother, her name was Ida, born Pasanau, looked after her two-year-old son Paul and looked after the small house. They also had a modest piece of land leased to the local landlord, which they managed for their own use. They grew the bare necessities and kept a few cattle, chickens and geese. In addition to a few dogs, the Alexander family also owned an aging horse.

In the summer of 1914, the mother became pregnant with William. At the same time, the drama of the First World War was brewing on the world stage, at the end of which 17 million victims would be mourned. After the assassination attempt on the heir to the Austrian throne in Sarajevo on June 28, the German Reich promised Austria in July that it would stand by Austria's side, regardless of how Austria would react to the assassination attempt. Armed with this “blank check,” Austria then declared war on Serbia, which, however, was supported by Russia. On July 30th, the Austrians and Russians were already at war. The German Reich then immediately declared war on Russia, France and England, and the madness began. The military leadership of the German Reich was well aware of the danger of a two-front war. And to prevent this, the so-called “Schlieffen Plan” was developed years before. This stipulated that through a rapid attack on France from the north and south, disregarding Belgian neutrality, France would be defeated so quickly that the army could then turn directly to the east, even before the Russian mobilization was complete. They were confident of victory in Berlin, but that was a mistake. Of course, the Alexander family knew nothing or very little about all of these plans. But people in East Prussia were worried because there were only a few troops on site to defend them. And contrary to imperial expectations, after just 14 days there were two tsarist armies in the country. Atrocities, escape and devastation were the result, but the Alexander family has so far been spared. However, the East Prussian nobility feared for their land and prosperity and turned directly to Kaiser Wilhelm II for help. They were then listened to by the Hohenzoller12’, and two corps were detached from the attacking army moving westward, which had not even reached the Marne, and marched eastward. Under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, one of the two tsarist armies was destroyed at the Battle of Tannenberg13) and the second was pushed eastwards. But this army still controlled large parts of East Prussia. In February 1915, in the “Winter Battle of Masuria,”14) the German attack on the remaining second tsarist army took place. Now the Alexander family also had to flee quickly to protect life and limb. Since the father had long been enlisted as a soldier and fought, he was wounded three times during the war, and his son William would surpass this number in the next war – that's how it was the grandfather riding the horse on a wet, cold and rainy morning in February hastily hitched up to the cart, while the heavily pregnant mother gathered the essentials. In a long refugee trek they set off on the arduous and dangerous journey towards Berlin, where on April 2nd, after a safe arrival, William Alexander saw the electric light of this world, safe and sound. Incidentally, William Alexander had never visited his birthplace, Berlin, in his life.

William later spoke about his grandfather with a wink. At that time he was employed as a rural postman and usually traveled from place to place in a carriage for days at a time, and it was only long years after the war that the family found out that the grandfather was quite busy, because he had a girlfriend in almost every town on his route. But that doesn't really matter here, so we'll just skip it.

After the war, the Alexander family returned to Rautenberg and their son Heinrich was born. The land was plowed by bombs and shells, and all the houses were destroyed. And still the half-decayed bodies of soldiers lay where they once died, and the entire land lay under a foul-smelling blanket of decay. Charred weapon parts and equipment, half-rusted grenades and ammunition lay everywhere. The father had to take out a loan to build a new house. But for the children it was a huge, exciting adventure playground, albeit a smelly one. William Alexander later reported that they initially thought it would be a good idea to remove the soldiers' boots from the corpses so that they could have shoes of their own or sell them. But the smell inside the shoes made her quickly throw that idea over-board. Instead, they turned their attention to the grenades lying around. They were already half rusted and the children threw stones at them to make them explode. It quickly became a common saying to “let it rip for once.” Many of the children lost an arm, an eye or even their entire life.

The East Prussian winters were long and harsh, it quickly became freezing cold and a lot of snow fell. Everyone in the family had to pitch in and help to make ends meet. Young William was very adept at hunting rabbits. The mountain hares had such wonderfully soft fur that could be used to make warm clothing. However, one winter was so bitterly cold that the Alexander family had to kill their old sheepdog Hector to get his fur. The family's other dogs soon followed. As I said, it was a tough time and we can hardly imagine it today. William walked almost the entire year fishing with his brothers. For them it was fun, but also an addition to their menu. They caught perch and carp. And the catfish, which he called mudfish and which the children loved to eat raw. He enjoyed fishing so much that his dream job in those days was that of a fish warden. This used to be a respected position, you were in the civil service and made sure that the water was intact, there was no pollution, and you were always in the fresh air. That meant freedom for William. Unfortunately, you had to study and take exams for this. But the Alexander family couldn't afford all of this. Things improved over the years as his father went back to work as a construction manager. And the piece of land was now back diligently cultivated for their own use, and they also had a few cows and chickens again. William was particularly good at keeping bees. He loved her sweet honey. In his memoirs, William later wrote how the children enjoyed sitting together as a family, singing and playing music together. One of the brothers played the harmonica and William played the fiddle. When spring came and it got warmer, the boys strolled through nature. Even as a child, William loved the fields, pastures and forests around him, through which he loved to run. However, the forests belonged to the East Prussian rural nobility, and they didn't like villagers staying there. If the “blue bloods” caught a boy, they quickly got a few hits. But that hadn't stopped anyone from going into the woods again and again. The children attended the small school in town. The girls sat in front and the boys sat behind them. And her teacher, called “Greybeard,” taught her everything that was learned in elementary school back then. And whenever the children's hair got longer, they had to put a piece of paper on the table in front of them and comb their hair out. Hordes of lice came to light.

There is another particularly nice anecdote. On the outskirts of Rautenberg, there was a house where an ancient woman had lived for ages. The wandering boys kept seeing this old woman walking into the forest, and the boys were sure that she was definitely a witch who was looking for herbs in the forest to practice black magic. One day at school, when the teenagers were talking about the witch again, their teacher “Graybeard” sat down with them. “I'll tell you a story about the old woman,” he said, peering at the boys over his round glasses. Everyone drew closer together in excitement and listened, because “Graybeard” was good at telling stories. The old woman had been the most beautiful girl in the whole village a long time ago, that's how he began the story. And all the young men fell in love with her, even those from the “blue bloods.” But the young woman chose one from the village. He was the most beautiful and strongest of all. So they built a house outskirts of the village and made the land around it cultivable. They painted the house in bright colors and everywhere beautiful and fragrant flowers were planted. They swore eternal love for each other, but then the man had to go to war against the French in 187O.15) When they said goodbye, he said that he would come back soon and she promised to wait for him as long as possible. But when the war was over, he didn't come back. And since then she has been waiting every day for him to come home. And every night a lantern burns at the window so that he can find his way to her. After William heard the story and he walked past her house again while wandering around at night and saw the lantern, it touched him very much and he wished that her husband would return home soon. Since then, no one has called the old woman “witch” anymore.

Then mother Ida fell ill with bovine tuberculosis. A disease that can spread from an infected cow to humans if they drink their milk. The petite mother quickly deteriorated physically. But she didn't let it show, as much as she could, she continued to bravely take care of the house and children. But in the spring of 1929 there was no more hope. She was spitting blood and suffering terribly. She died a few hours before sunrise. The priest present spoke of salvation. William, who was only 14 years old, ran out of the house crying and into the forest. He went in deeper and deeper. He sat in a small clearing and mourned, praying to God. From an early age he felt the power of nature, “Mother Nature,” as he called her, and her beauty, which gave him new courage. William was a believer in God all his life. And he had a clear vision of God and how he would communicate with him. He didn't fold his hands or look down. God, William said, would want to see children created in his image as equals. Not on the floor. William remained skeptical of the institution of the church well into his old age. He rejected condescension. Not only by clergy, but in life in general, he didn't like being ruled over. He wanted to be free. And he also communicated this in his later TV career. William's mother wanted her sons to learn a trade. So after their death they all started teaching. One became a butcher, the other made cheese. William learned the trade of saddler and upholsterer in the village. He was hired and trained by Mr. Tomescheit, who worked a lot for the “blue bloods.” Mr. Tomescheit had a two-story house in town. The shop was downstairs and he lived upstairs with his wife. The apprentices also lived there and worked six days a week. Only Sunday was free, and on that day the boys always played football. Oh, William loved football. One day a painter traveling through the country came to Rautenburg. He went from one estate to the next and painted the lords' houses, or a portrait, or even landscapes. The children called the artist “frogman,” because of what he looked like a frog and also spoke so broadly out of the corner of his mouth. Whenever William could, he watched the frogman. He could paint a landscape in a hurry. This man impressed him, and William also wanted to paint. Like the frogman. Decades later he still remembered the itinerant painter who had so impressed him. After William had been an apprentice for two years, his dream of painting came a little closer. Mr. Tomescheit, his teacher, also looked after the nobles' carriages. He upholstered them, provided them with leather harnesses, and also painted the carriages with beautiful decorations. Since William was clever, he was allowed to do this work from then on and decorated the carriages with painted roses and intertwined leaf tendrils. His teacher was satisfied and William felt like an artist for the first time. Feel good! One of his school friends was Heinz Höller. His father was one of the wealthy landowners in the area. And when he wanted to have a wall in his house painted, Heinz made sure that his friend William got the job. William was thrilled when he saw the large blank wall surrounded by heavy dark wood paneling. He mixed color pigments and oil together and thought about what the squire would like. He actually wanted to paint a horse. Galloping and with flowing mane. But he knew the popular motifs of those days and painted a hunting scene with a deer and a lion, a dense forest and mountains. All in all, a beautiful picture, the landowner was thrilled, and from then on William was allowed to paint in many manor houses. Many years later he visited his friend Heinz in his father's house. The mural was still there, but the colors were all faded or chipped. The colors he mixed did not have the right proportions and, as William reported, in many manor houses they simply painted over his works white.

When the global economic crisis16) came and more and more people lost their jobs, it was also felt in East Prussia. William had completed his education, but Mr. Tomescheit could not and did not want to employ him any further. A source of income was needed. Since he could play the fiddle very well, he joined forces with some of his friends. Heinz was also there. The five of them then founded a “Hungarian gypsy band,” as it was called in those distant days. So they traveled all over East Prussia and visited all the towns. In summer they slept under the open sky, in winter they also played for shelter and something to eat. They wore colorful vests and shirts when they played music, and they played everywhere. At weddings, village festivals and inns, they took advantage of every opportunity. Although they usually only received a little money, they received even more beer for their performances. As he later said, it was a beautiful time and, above all, characterized by freedom.

As a frontline soldier in the Second World War