Anchorage Daily News

Alex Duff Combs, a towering figure on the Alaska art scene for more than half a century, died Thursday in Homer. He was 88.The man credited with advancing the sophistication and appreciation of modern art in the 49th state was born in the rugged backwoods country of Hazard, Ky., on Aug. 11, 1919. He described his family as "dirt poor."

Combs joined the Navy in 1942 and served in a diving unit deployed to Italy. He would often return to that country to visit museums, lead art tour groups, conduct classes and advance his own studies.

After World War II, he studied art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, then at Temple University in Philadelphia, from which he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1952.

He came to Alaska in 1955 and worked as a janitor and commercial fisherman before becoming an art teacher with the Anchorage School District in 1956 - the only art teacher with district-wide responsibilities and classes.

He joined the faculty of Anchorage Community College in 1962 and spent the next several years instructing a new generation of Alaska artists, building up the art department, conducting studies on the suitability of local clay for ceramics and producing a substantial quantity of his own work.

The Alaska art scene was dominated almost exclusively by landscapes and illustrative styles at the time. Combs encouraged pupils and viewers to take a wider view. He injected fresh and sometimes startling abstract, expressionist and impressionist elements into his own work. At the same time he encouraged the talent and polished the technique of students interested in more traditional representational art.

Pottery was considered his special domain. He constructed some of the first kilns in the area. His clay classes invariably had a waiting list. He made everything from ashtrays to major stand-alone sculptures and architectural features. His best known piece may be the frieze at the top of older parts of the Anchorage Museum.

But he also excelled at painting. His large canvas "Migration" won a major national award in 1965 and toured the country.

In 1979, irked by the administrative turmoil that accompanied the eventual absorption of the college by the University of Alaska Anchorage, he resigned his tenured professorship. It was a heavy and unhappy decision for him. "After 25 years, no gold watch, not a word," he told the Daily News.

He relocated to Halibut Cove, a scattering of cabins and seasonal homes on the south side of Kachemak Bay with no roads in or out. There he set up his kilns and studio and continued to work. A show of his art, both past and recent, took place at Alaska Pacific University in August 2007. It was his last show in Anchorage.

Despite his age and declining health, he reveled in his work and the demanding life of rural Alaska until the end. He painted and walked the remote beach by his cabin the day before the sudden heart attack that sent him to South Peninsula Hospital in Homer.

Combs is survived by Diana Conway, his life partner; three sons, Sam, Jonathan and David; and several grandchildren. No services are planned, but Conway said his ashes would be buried in Halibut Cove.

Friends, fans and former students are invited to leave tributes, reminiscences and comments at adn.com/artsnob.

Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.

ADVERTISEMENT