Alice E. Cleaver

Alice E. Cleaver (1870-1944) was an American artist known for impressionistic oil paintings depicting women, music, and still life, as well as for her scenes of daily life and landscapes in the American Southwest.

Early life and education Cleaver was born in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1878. In 1884, Cleaver and her family moved to Falls City, Nebraska, where she graduated from Falls City High School in 1888. Cleaver attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln for music from 1892 to 1895. She took classes under art instructor Cora Parker. Cleaver's sketches were said to be among the best in a University exhibition by The Lincoln Courier in 1895.

After graduation, she lived in Falls City until she started school at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago from 1899 to 1903. Cleaver continued her academic career with two scholarships at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Cleaver spent time in Isleta, New Mexico, painting the everyday life of the Pueblo for the Railway. One of her larger works was purchased by the El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon and hangs there today. In 1909, Cleaver was appointed as the art director of the City Federation of Women's Clubs.

In 1913, Cleaver moved to work in Paris under the instruction of Lucien Simon and Louis-François Biloul. Her studies were cut short due to the start of World War 1 in 1914 and she moved back to Falls City where she lived the rest of her life.

Selected works

Memories, 1911 The Ironing Girl,1914 Girl with Palette, 1915 Girl in White, 1911-1915 Aunt Nettie, n.d. The Cast Room, n.d.

Exhibitions

Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, Missouri, 1904 and 1911 Omaha Society of Fine Arts, Omaha, Nebraska,1922 Cleaver won the John L. Webster Prize Nebraska Art Association in Lincoln, Nebraska, 1921 Midwestern Artists in Kansas City, Missouri, 1928 Omaha Art Guild, Omaha, Nebraska, 1926 and 1935 Lydia Brunn Woods Memorial Library, Falls City, Nebraska,1946 Falls City Art Association and the Friends of the Library, Falls City, Nebraska, 1970 Museum of Nebraska Art, Kearney, Nebraska, 1986