Alfred James Wands was raised in Cleveland and graduated from the Cleveland Art Institute with honors. He then spent time in Paris, studying art at the Académie Julian. He also studied in Brussels, Munich, and at Western Reserve University back in Ohio. After his European travels, Wands returned to his home state to teach at the Cleveland Art Institute and the Cleveland Museum of Art. During this period he had multiple works accepted into the Carnegie Institute's International Exhibits. Making his next move to Denver with his wife Dorothy, Wands headed the Art Department at Colorado Women’s College. He taught for seventeen years, simultaneously writing a daily hunting and fishing column for Rocky Mountain News. He also published a very popular art instructional book entitled How to Paint Mountains. In 1930 Wands discovered the painting community of Taos, New Mexico. There he spent the next eleven summers, becoming friends with and painting alongside the distinguished Taos artists of that period. In 1947 he decided to devote himself full time to painting, and he was successful from the very start. Beginning in the early 1950s, the Wands family wintered in Mexico and along the California coast, especially in Big Sur and all around the Monterey Peninsula where he was juried into the Carmel Art Association. He regularly exhibited with CAA until his return to Colorado in 1965.Known to this day as the "Dean of Colorado Landscape Painters," Wands was active in the Denver Artists Guild and the Denver Art Commission. He also joined the Cleveland Society of Artists, Ohio Watercolor Society, and Chicago Galleries Association. His award-winning exhibition list extends from Carmel-by-the-Sea to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, Chicago Art Institute, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and even the New York World’s Fair of 1939, as well as participating in numerous international shows. His works are held in permanent collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and Kansas City Art Institute, to name just a few.