Alphaeus Philemon Cole
Template:Short description Template:Infobox person Alphaeus Philemon Cole (July 12, 1876 – November 25, 1988) was an American artist, engraver, etcher and supercentenarian. He was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of noted wood-engraver Timothy Cole.<ref name=NYTimes>Alphaeus Cole, a Portraitist, 112, obituary by Michel Kimmelman, November 26, 1988, The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-11-15. (The NY Times obituary for Cole erroneously gives the year of death of Anita Rio as 1973 — the correct year of death is 1971.)</ref> Until his death, at age 112 years and 136 days, Alphaeus had been the world's oldest verified living man and the oldest living person in the United States.
BiographyEdit
Cole studied art first under Isaac Craig, in Italy, then in Paris from 1892 to 1901 with Jean Paul Laurens and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant at the Académie Julian,<ref name=Smithsonian>"Archives of American Art - Alphaeus P. Cole papers, 1885-1988 (collection summary)", Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2007-11-15.</ref><ref name=Salmagundi>"Alphaeus Philemon Cole" Template:Webarchive, Salmagundi Club. Retrieved 2007-11-15.</ref> and later at the École des Beaux-Arts.<ref name=NYTimes/> In the mid-1890s, he began to produce many vibrant works, mostly various still lifes and portraits. His painting of Dante was exhibited in the 1900 Paris Salon,<ref name=Smithsonian/> and more artwork was displayed at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
Cole moved to England and married sculptor Margaret Ward Walmsley in 1903.<ref name=Smithsonian/> He began to venture into the fields of wood/steel engraving and etching, but these works sold less than his portraits. He contributed several drawings to the Encyclopædia Britannica. They moved again, to the United States, in 1911.<ref name=Smithsonian/> In 1918, Cole became a member of the Salmagundi Club, the nation's oldest professional art club.<ref name=NYTimes/> From 1924 to 1931, he taught portrait and still life classes at Cooper Union.<ref name=Salmagundi/> He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1930.<ref name=NYTimes/> He was the president of the New York Water Color Club from 1931 to 1941.<ref name=Smithsonian/> In the 1940s, Cole worked as a judge of paintings in Max Pochapin's Manhattan Hall of Art, a merchandising art gallery, which was a revolutionary idea at the time.<ref name=Time>"Cut-Rate Art", Time magazine, September 6, 1943. Retrieved 2007-11-15.</ref> From 1952 to 1953, he was president of Allied Artists of America.<ref name="AlliedArtists">"Presidents Of Allied Artists Of America, Inc." Template:Webarchive, Allied Artists of America. Retrieved 2007-11-15.</ref> His first wife died in 1961, and Cole married Anita Rio (born 1873), a singer, and the widow of painter Eugene Higgins, in 1962.<ref name=Smithsonian/> She died in 1971.<ref name=NYTimes/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Cole actively painted and exhibited up to the age of 103.<ref name=Salmagundi/> He died at New York's Chelsea Hotel, where he had lived for 35 years.<ref name=NZHerald>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Cole's work is in the permanent collections of London's National Portrait Gallery and the Brooklyn Museum,<ref name=NYTimes/> and his papers are stored at the Smithsonian Institution.<ref name=Smithsonian/>
Cole was subsequently verified as having been the oldest living man following the death of 111-year-old Norwegian skier Herman Smith-Johannsen, on January 5, 1987.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He was also the oldest living person in the United States for seven months after the death of 112-year-old Elzona Maxey on April 25, 1988.
He died in New York City, aged 112 years and 136 days.