Alfred Di Cesare
American (1910-1993)
A well known colorist, Alfred Di Cesare was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1910. At fourteen he suffered an injury playing football and spent two months in a hospital on bed rest, it was during this time that he began to sketch pencil portraits of the doctors. His family doctor encouraged Di Cesare’s father to enroll his son in the School of Practical Arts. Through connections at the school the artist began working for the Donnelly Advertising Company making original layouts for hand-painted billboards. On a lunch break one day he attended an exhibition of paintings by Boston artists and was impressed by a work by Ernest Lee Major (American, 1864-1950) and immediately sought him out as a teacher. After studying with Major, Di Cesare became Major’s studio assistant for ten years at the Massachusetts Normal Art School, now the Massachusetts School of Art and Design.
