Painter and collagist Alexander Nepote was born on November 6, 1913, on a ranch near Stockton, California. He studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC; now the California College of the Arts) and earned his MFA from Mills College, both in Oakland. He exhibited at the famed Golden Gate International Exhibition in 1939. Following the Second World War, during which he worked in the Kaiser shipyards in nearby Richmond, he began teaching at California State University, San Francisco, becoming dean in 1950, a position he kept until 1977.

Nepote's style evolved with the times, beginning with training at the CCAC in drawing and painting. By the 1930s he focused on Modernist landscapes of rural California executed in stylized, saturated colors. With the rise of Abstract Expressionism in the U.S., his work became more abstract and featured energetic, bold strokes of color, often layered with paper collage and paint. By the end of his life his work became more detailed and his palette darker. These compositions presented as mysterious, almost alien landscapes at whose core remained the wilderness of California's forests and seashores.

Napote was a member of the West Coast Watercolor Society, the Bay Region Art Association, and the California Watercolor Society. He received accolades for his work from the San Francisco Chronicle's art critic Alfred Frankenstein and ArtForum magazine's Palmer D. French. Alexander Nepote died on March 12, 1986 in Milbrae, California.

Selected Exhibitions:
Contemporary American Art, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH; Contemporary Art USA, Worcester Museum, Worcester, MA; 3rd International Biennial, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco, CA; Quay Gallery, San Francisco; American Painting, University pf Illinois, Champaign, IL; American Art of Our Time, Massachusetts Museum, North Adams, MA; Prize Winners USA, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; American Watercolors, Metrolpolitan Museum of Art, New Yourk City, NY.

Collections:
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY; Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, CA; Los Angeles County Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Lytton Savings and Loan Association Collection; Crown Zellerbach Company Collection; United Airlines Collection; San Francisco Municiple Collection; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA.

Memberships:
West Coast Watercolor Society; Bay Region Art Association; California Watercolor Society.