William Bill Alexander

Place: East Prussia

Born: 1915

Death: 1997

Biography:

William Alexander known as Bill Alexander on his TV show; was a German painter, art instructor, and television host. He was the creator and host of The Magic of Oil Painting (1974-1982) television programs that ran on PBS in the United States. He wrote The Art of Bill Alexander (1987–1995), a series of books on wet-on-wet oil painting. He also taught the television painter Bob Ross the wet-on-wet technique.
Bill Alexander was born in East Prussia, but his family fled to Berlin during World War I. Apprenticed as a carriage maker, Alexander was drafted into the Wehrmacht during World War II. Captured by Allied troops, he painted portraits of Allied officers' wives and he soon made his way to the United States.
After WWII, he became a refugee, and professional painter, pioneering the modern quick version of the wet-on-wet technique, and moving to North America. Later, he became a TV host on his painting education TV show.
Alexander is best known for the television program The Magic of Oil Painting (1974-1982), which ran on PBS in the United States. In the tv series The Art of Bill Alexander & Robert Warren (1984–1992), Alexander teamed with painters Lowell Speers, Robert Warren, Buck Paulson and Diane André. Alexander would introduce the episode, then hand it off to the hosting painter. This series is often erroneously listed either as a series of books or as a single documentary.
TV host and prolific painter Bob Ross studied under Alexander, from whom he learned his wet-on-wet technique, a method of painting rapidly using progressively thinner layers of oil paint. Ross dedicated the first episode of the second season of The Joy of Painting to Alexander, explaining that "Years ago, Bill taught me this fantastic technique, and I feel as though he gave me a precious gift, and I'd like to share that gift with you ". As Ross's popularity grew, his relationship with Alexander became increasingly strained. "He betrayed me," Alexander told the New York Times in 1991. "I invented 'wet on wet', I trained him, and ... he thinks he can do it better." Art historians have pointed out that the "wet-on-wet" (or alla prima) technique actually originated in Flanders during the 15th century, and was used by Frans Hals, Diego Velázquez, Caravaggio, Paul Cezanne, John Singer Sargent, and Claude Monet, among many others.

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