Alphaeus Philemon Cole (July 12, 1876 – November 25, 1988) was an American artist, engraver,

etcher Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

and supercentenarian. He was born in

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, second-most populous

, the son of noted

wood-engraver Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and prints using relatively lo ...

Timothy Cole.Alphaeus Cole, a Portraitist, 112
obituary by Michel Kimmelman, November 26, 1988, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. Retrieved 2007-11-15. (The ''NY Times'' obituary for Cole erroneously gives the year of death of Anita Rio as 1973 — the correct year of death is 1971.) Until his death, at age 112 years and 136 days, Alphaeus had been the world's oldest verified living man and the oldest living person in the United States.

Biography

Cole studied art first under Isaac Craig, in Italy, then in Paris from 1892 to 1901 with Jean Paul Laurens and

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (also known as Benjamin-Constant), born Jean-Joseph Constant (10 June 1845 – 26 May 1902), was a French painter and etcher best known for his Oriental subjects and portraits. Biography Benjamin-Constant was ...

at the

Académie Julian The () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907). The school was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and qual ...

,"Archives of American Art - Alphaeus P. Cole papers, 1885-1988 (collection summary)"

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

. Retrieved 2007-11-15."Alphaeus Philemon Cole"
,

Salmagundi Club The Salmagundi Club, sometimes referred to as the Salmagundi Art Club, is a fine arts center founded in 1871 in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan, New York City. Since 1917, it has been located at 47 Fifth Avenue. , its membership rost ...

. Retrieved 2007-11-15. and later at the

École des Beaux-Arts ; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centu ...

. In the mid-1890s, he began to produce many vibrant works, mostly various

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

s and portraits. His painting of

Dante Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...

was exhibited in the 1900

Paris Salon The Salon (), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world. At the ...

, and more artwork was displayed at the 1901

Pan-American Exposition The Pan-American Exposition was a world's fair held in Buffalo, New York, United States, from May 1 through November 2, 1901. The fair occupied of land on the western edge of what is now Delaware Park–Front Park System, Delaware Park, extending ...

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

. Cole moved to England and married sculptor Margaret Ward Walmsley in 1903. He began to venture into the fields of wood/steel engraving and etching, but these works sold less than his portraits. He contributed several drawings to the ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...

''. They moved again, to the United States, in 1911. In 1918, Cole became a member of the

, the nation's oldest professional art club. From 1924 to 1931, he taught

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...

and

classes at

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly known as Cooper Union, is a private college on Cooper Square in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-s ...

. He was elected to the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...

in 1930. He was the president of the New York Water Color Club from 1931 to 1941. In the 1940s, Cole worked as a judge of paintings in Max Pochapin's Manhattan Hall of Art, a merchandising art gallery, which was a revolutionary idea at the time."Cut-Rate Art"
''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine, September 6, 1943. Retrieved 2007-11-15. From 1952 to 1953, he was president of Allied Artists of America."Presidents Of Allied Artists Of America, Inc."
, Allied Artists of America. Retrieved 2007-11-15. His first wife died in 1961, and Cole married Anita Rio (born 1873), a singer, and the widow of painter Eugene Higgins, in 1962. She died in 1971. Cole actively painted and exhibited up to the age of 103. He died at New York's

Chelsea Hotel The Hotel Chelsea (also known as the Chelsea Hotel and the Chelsea) is a hotel at 222 West 23rd Street (Manhattan), 23rd Street in the Chelsea, Manhattan, Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Built between 1883 and 1884, the hot ...

, where he had lived for 35 years. Cole's work is in the permanent collections of London's

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...

and the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

, and his papers are stored at the

. Cole was subsequently verified as having been the oldest living man following the death of 111-year-old Norwegian skier

Herman Smith-Johannsen Herman "Jackrabbit" Smith-Johannsen, Oldest people The following are tables of the oldest people in the world in ordinal ranks. To avoid including false or unconfirmed claims of old age, names here are restricted to those people whose ages have been validated by an international body deali ...

Supercentenarian A supercentenarian, sometimes hyphenated as super-centenarian, is a person who is 110 or older. This age is achieved by about one in 1,000 centenarians. Supercentenarians typically live a life free of significant age-related diseases until short ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cole, Alphaeus Philemon 1876 births 1988 deaths American engravers 20th-century American etchers American printmakers American supercentenarians Men supercentenarians Artists from Jersey City, New Jersey Artists from New York City Cooper Union faculty Académie Julian alumni American expatriates in Italy American expatriates in France