A personal tribute to William (Bill) Alexander, the original TV painter and developer of the modern "Wet-on-wet" technique of painting.


Last Updated: Friday 24 April 2015

You may find it unusual that an underground medical/scientific museum is pausing to remember the artistic work of a well-known television celebrity artist.  Bill taught millions of people how to paint, even people who would later become his competitors.   Bill was a great inspiration to me growing up.  When I was 10 years old in 1986 I picked up a brush for the first time after watching his TV show.  I have since done more than 500 paintings.  My story is one not unlike thousands of other people around the world.  It would be hard to measure how many people Bill inspired.  Most learned of him from his early TV show, the "Magic Of Oil Painting".  I wrote to KOCE years ago  (the original PBS station that produced his show)  and asked permission to put excerpts of some of the early shows on Youtube.  I featured a few of them below for those wanting some nostalgia of 80's television and a hint of who the man was.  Sadly, Bill is no longer with us.  And my quest to preserve rare history has led to the creation of this page.  Bill's technique was often criticized in the art world for being too real and not enough "feeling".  Art critics seem to hate realism.  Any of us who paint with this technique "feel the wrath" by those type of people.  Bill's last paintings defy the critics.  They show the man himself, the feeling of someone who lived over 80 years and came to his country as a German POW.  Bill was a man who despised war, greed, and many evils of modern society.  He came to this country with nothing and of his own free will became a traveling "Happy Painter" who soon grew in the hearts of millions as not only an "almighty" painter but an "almighty" inspiration.  

Bills last paintings are FOR SALE.  I am helping his family find a permanent home for them.  Please email for more information...   jeff_behary@hotmail.com 

Click below to watch some of Bill's early TV shows.  These are not professional quality, just a collected effort from fans who
taped the shows on VHS and Beta during the 80s.  But it gives you a hint on to the man himself and his art and philosophy!