Just a few weeks after the initial release of the first German Bill Alexander biography an English version has been released. Due to the fact, that Bill Alexander is better known in the English speaking world this step was inevitable. Is it the same book? It is with a few tweaks here and there, i.e. some picture inside the book have been enlarged and a map showing Bill Alexander’s final resting place has been added. Nobody should mind the few typos and German phrasing which can be found – only imagine you had to figure out the German book by yourself.
So what kind of information do you get – especially if you already own Bill Alexander’s biography released in 1983? Here is English translation for the review I wrote for the German version:
It would be an exaggeration to say that Bill Alexander is completely unknown in Germany – simply because a lot is published about Bob Ross and Bill Alexander is often mentioned there as his teacher. There is also a German Wikipedia entry. In this respect, Bill’s existence is at least known to “insiders”.
It is still astonishing that Bill’s Emmy-winning success in the USA at the end of the 70s and beginning of the 80s found no response at all in Germany. A country that actually celebrates and takes due note of every success of Germans in North America.
Should the late Bill Alexander now be sad? Not at all, in fact he shares the fate of many artists who were overlooked in Germany during their lifetime – Caspar David Friedrich, whose 250th birthday is being celebrated across the country this year, is a good example.
Some readers will now want to step on the brakes – saying oil paintings à la Bob Ross can’t be called art. I don’t want to discuss whether this is actually the case at this point, but there are definitely good reasons to understand Bob Ross and his works as art. Reference should be made to Kristin G. Congdon, Doug Blandy and Danny Coeyman, who devote themselves to this topic in their book “Happy Clouds, Happy Trees – The Bob Ross Phenomenon” – independently of the company Bob Ross Inc.
But Bill Alexander is not Bob Ross. The latter – if we want to be a little malicious – learned the painting technique perfected by Bill Alexander, copied it and was then able to present it on TV a little more gallantly. At least Bob Ross was and is broadcast successfully on German television. Unfortunately, his teacher never made it onto a German television screen.
But Bill Alexander was successful long before Bob Ross – otherwise he would not have appeared on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and would not have received the aforementioned Emmy Award for his PBS series “The Magic of Oil Painting”. Bill Alexander has always had fans despite his faulty English and the way he presented things that took some time getting used to. Why? Because, what he presented to people was convincing.
Undisputedly, Bob Ross was more successful with his copy of this concept – but what he never was is a versatile artist. Bill Alexander, on the other hand, actually learned his profession in Germany and experienced his first successes as a portrait painter – at least starting since his American captivity after the Second World War. So – unlike his student – he never only painted happy trees and mountains.
In order to develop an understanding of Bill Alexander’s career, it is actually necessary to take a closer look at his story. In the USA you can consult Bill Alexander’s biography “the Bill Alexander Story”, which was published in hardback and paperback in the early 1980s. Even accompanied by a PBS documentary.
Unfortunately, there was never a German publication of this biography. The artist Jörg-Michael Müller also noticed this and now wants to remedy this with his publication. On his own initiative, he published the first German Bill Alexander biography as a printed book in early 2024. Since the more extensive US biography is difficult to obtain in Germany, German readers now also have the opportunity to get to know Bill Alexander.
Unlike the US biography, Müller’s biography has few illustrations, as this would certainly have at least doubled the purchase price for a Books on Demand publication. Although, on the cover of the paperback there are some colored photos of works that Bill Alexander painted shortly before his death and which are very different from the typical Bill Alexander pictures. As a matter of fact, this biography does not offer a comprehensive overview of typical Bill Alexander images – but this is certainly not what a biography is intended for.
Müller’s biography mainly uses Bill Alexander’s American biography as a source and translates significant parts into German. He also uses some English-language sources that can be found on the Internet. This includes, among other things, a list of “The Magic of Oil Painting” seasons and information about Bill Alexander’s painting technique, which is also described in the accompanying course booklets for Bill Alexander’s PBS series.
One might assume now that anyone who speaks English well won’t be able to obtain much new information from Müller’s biography. But this is a false assumption. Müller took the trouble to do research in Canada – where Bill Alexander lived. Bill Alexander’s “foster son”, Talore Hillton, who is also involved in this website, was able to provide important details about Bill Alexander’s later years up until his death. This allows further insights into Bill Alexander’s life that the US biography does not allow. Of course, it would have been desirable to use additional sources to examine Bill Alexander – but a start has been made.
Overall, it is a biography worth reading, which is also the very first German publication. Hopefully this is the starting signal for further German publications about Bill Alexander.
“The Forgotten Artist – William “Bill” Alexander” by Jörg-Michael Müller is available online and in bookstores.
Stephan Petersen – March 2024
