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Larry Dell Alexander (born May 30, 1953) is an American artist, Christian author and teacher from Dermott, Arkansas in Chicot County. Alexander is best known for his creations of elaborate colorful, and black & white "pen and ink" drawings in his "crosshatching", or "hatching" technique. He also received notoriety and a personal presidential thanks for his personal rendition of a "Clinton Family Portrait" oil painting which he gave to U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1995.〔(- "Larry Alexander strives to inspire young artists" - Fri. Oct. 20, 1995 - page 1A - Lizabeth Cardenas )〕 It is now a part of the collection at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is also known for the Arkansas Schools Tours that he did between 1996 and 2006. He has written several devotional Bible studies commentaries on several New Testament books of the Christian Bible, and has also created many drawings and paintings with strong Christian themes over the years.〔(Fort Worth Star-Telegram - Archives - "Irving artist gives his presidential portrait to Clintons" - Mon. Aug. 21,1995 - page 10A - Terry Lee Jones )〕〔(- "Irving artist gives portrait to Clintons" Dallas Morning News/Irving News Edition Sun. July 16, 1995 - page 10A )〕〔(- "Presidential portrait receives stamp of approval" - Aug. 1995 - page 4 - Artimes Magazine )〕〔(- Encylopedia of Arkansas - Larry Dell Alexander - 1953- )〕 ==Early life and career== Born in the small rural town of Dermott, Arkansas to Robert and Janie Alexander, Larry is the fourth of ten children and the second of the union of his parents. His father was a truck driver, and his mother was a beautician. Alexander began drawing at about the age of four. He never received any formal art training during any level of his schooling while growing up, as none was available in his small rural hometown. After graduating from Dermott High School in May 1971, Alexander moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where he studied Architectural Residential Design at Pines Vocational Technical School, now Southeast Arkansas College. In later years he also attended Richland College in Dallas, Texas where he studied AutoCAD. Today, six pieces of his work from his popular "Dermott Series", a series of paintings he painted about his childhood home of Dermott, are now a part of the permanent collection at the Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Alexander's work is mostly influenced by his experiences in life, such as growing up in the rural south during the 1950s and 1960s, as well as his life in Detroit, Michigan during the 1970s and 1980s. Alexander moved to Detroit, Michigan after two years of school in Pine Bluff to seek employment in his chosen field. However, he was unsuccessful in the short run, and instead, he ended up finding work in a Chrysler auto assembly plant and became fascinated with the innerworkings of cars. This led him to become a certified mechanic, a craft he worked at for the next seventeen years. He ultimately met and married his wife, Patricia while living in Detroit, and they moved their family to Irving, Texas where he opened his own auto repair shop and operated it until 1991. Encouraged by Patricia, he began using his art talent for the first time in fifteen years. His career as a professional artist can be traced back to this point as he developed his "pen and ink" style that he calls "crosshatching", and used it to create several lines of greeting cards under his, now defunct, "Alexander Greeting Cards Company" name. He coined the phrase "The Expressions Line" for his first line of greeting cards in 1991, but did not trademark the name. As a result, Hallmark Cards now has used the name on a line of their cards since 1997. His line should not be confused or associated with their product line.〔(- Library of Congress - Alexander, Larry Dell - 1953 )〕〔(- Alexander Greeting Cards - Larry Dell Alexander )〕 Between 1991 and 1994 he created over 80 pieces of "pen and ink" fine art,〔(- Library of Congress - Alexander, Larry D. - 1953 )〕 including "Renetta", "Girlfriends", "Cowboy Fiddler", "Young Kennedys", and "Roundup". He also used many of his drawings on his "Fine-arTshirt" T-shirt line of the mid-nineties.〔(- "Artist donates design to help homeless" - Artime Magazine/Irving News section - Oct. 1994 - page 2 )〕 Alexander is also a "realist painter" who works in a variety of other mediums including oils, acrylics, and watercolors. He is a self-taught artist who chooses mostly to do exhibits in venues that provide mainstream exposure to a large variety of people such as festivals, schools, malls, libraries, banks, art institutions, and even U.S. Post Office branches on occasion.〔(artist to show new prints at festival" - Pine Bluff Commercial - Friday May 20, 2005 - page 1D )〕〔(- "Works by Dermott native accepted by Arts Center" - Thur. Feb. 25, 1999 - page 2A - Eva Marie Pearson )〕〔(Fort Worth Star-Telegram - Archives - "Widely diverse artists featured in African-American exhibit" - Fri. Jan. 2, 1995 - page 7A - Terry Lee Jones )〕〔(- "Soldiers and Cowboys Remembered" - Feb. 2008 - page 13 - David Turissini )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Larry D. Alexander」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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