Pike County, Alabama
Pike County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2010 census the population was 32,899. Its county seat is Troy. Its name is in honor of General Zebulon Pike, of New Jersey, an explorer who led an expedition to southern Colorado and discovered Pikes Peak in 1806.
Albert Pike Lucas
Albert Pike Lucas (1862–1945) was an American landscape, figure, and portrait painter; also a sculptor. He was born in Jersey City, and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts (1882–1888) in Paris under Hébert and Boulanger and later under Courtois and Dagman-Bouveret. At the Salon of 1896 he won a medal. After a sojourn in Italy he settled in New York in 1902. His painting is distinctly personal, with the lyric note predominant, and shows sympathetic intimacy with nature, especially in her larger and more mysterious aspects. His handling is broad yet conscientious, his color scheme rich and glowing, and he excels in the management of diffused light, as seen most strikingly in his well-known "Golden Madonna." He painted by preference nocturnes and twilight scenes, such as "October Breezes" (National Gallery, Washington), "The Little Church on the Hill," and "Walking against the Wind." He also painted portraits of many prominent persons. A good specimen of his work as a sculptor is the statuette "Ecstasy," in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.