Painter and printmaker Alexander Zerdini Kruse was born in New York in 1888. A student of the Ashcan era, he studied under John Sloan, George Bellows, Robert Henri, and George Luks. He attended the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League. Kruse was inspired by the Socialist thinkers of his time, preferring to portray the every day people and situations he knew from his environs.

As an art critic he worked for the Brooklyn Eagle and wrote the how-to column "Art With a Small 'A'" for the New York Post. Additionally, he wrote two widely published instruction books in the 1950s. He taught at Brooklyn College, Riverside Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum Art School. His work can be found in New York's Metroplitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Library of Congress, and others.  He exhibited throughout the US and internationally.

Kruse died in Los Angeles, CA in 1972.