Fleeting Time, Thou Hast Left Me Old

Fleeting Time, Thou Hast Left Me Old is Ivan Albright's lithograph portrait of Byron McCain, a grizzled seventy-eight-year-old horse trainer, whose deeply wrinkled face peers out beneath a crocheted skullcap. In a half-length pose that dates back to the Renaissance, McCain calmly holds his glasses in his left hand. Clad in a fingerless glove, he gazes dreamily. Clearly, his spectacles are not needed for him to see that death lies ahead. Inspired throughout his career by the theme of mortality, Albright was obsessed with unflinchingly rendering the nuances of aging: he made creased, sagging flesh as eloquent as old master depictions of drapery folds. The print is a somber rhapsody of brilliantly modeled textures. McCain's coarse, withered face presides above his softly puckered jacket; his unruly whiskers contrast with the orderly mesh of his stitched head covering. Albright's poetic title underscores the print's meditation on the transitory nature of life and one man's resigned acceptance.

In 1931, Francis Chapin, a printmaking instructor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, introduced Albright to lithography. Fourteen years later, after a successful joint exhibition with his twin brother Malvin, a sculptor, at Associated American Artists in New York, the gallery commissioned Ivan to produce a lithograph after one of his major paintings. The result was Fleeting Time, Thou Hast Left Me Old, a black and white translation of an important painting of the same title that the artist made relatively early in his career, in 1928–29 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). The lithograph was the artist's first print issued in a large edition: in this case 250 impressions. Between 1931 and 1977, Albright made a total of sixteen lithographs and five intaglio prints. Fleeting Time, Thou Hast Left Me Old was one of nine lithographs related to previously executed works.

L'Amérique et les modernes, 1900–1950 (American Moderns, 1900–1950), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, July 25–October 31, 2000. [exh. cat.]

Visages de l'Amérique: de George Washington à Marilyn Monroe (Faces of America: From George Washington to Marilyn Monroe), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2004 (on exhibit partial run: April 1–July 5, 2004). [exh. cat.]

Magazine Arts 43 (December 1950): 290. Ill. p. 290.

Croydon, Michael. Ivan Albright. New York: Abbeville Press, 1978. Text p. 199; pl. 97, p. 207 [oil painting: text p. 45; pl. 23, p. 72 (color); detail p. 73 (color)].

Grayson, Gael, ed. Graven Image: The Prints of Ivan Albright. (exh. cat., Lake Forest College). Lake Forest, Illinois: Lake Forest College, 1978. Pl. 11.

American Printmakers, 1860–1950. Chicago, Illinois: R. S. Johnson Fine Art, 1987. Ill. no. 89.

Teller, Susan Pirpiris. "The Prints of Ivan Albright." Print Review 10 (1979): 21–35. Fig. 10, pp. 28–31 (this print but not this impression).

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. American Moderns, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text p. 60; pl. 1, p. 28 (black & white). [specific reference to Terra print]

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. L'Amérique et les modernes, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text p. 60; pl. 1, p. 28 (black & white). [specific reference to Terra print]

Kennedy, Elizabeth and Sophie Lévy. Faces of America: Portraits of the Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, 1770–1940. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2004. Text pp. 19, 30 (checklist); fig. 6, p. 19 (color). [specific reference to Terra print]

Kennedy, Elizabeth and Sophie Lévy. Visages de l'Amérique: le portrait dans la collection de la Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1770–1940. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2004. Text pp. 19, 30 (checklist); fig. 6, p. 19 (color). [specific reference to Terra print]

Lévy, Sophie, et al. Twarze Ameryki: Portrety z kolekcji Terra Foundation for American Art, 1770–1940/Faces of America: Portraits from the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, 1770–1940. (exh. cat. International Cultural Center). Cracow, Poland: International Cultural Center, 2006. Text pp. 24–26; ill., Fig. 5, p. 26 (color). [specific refernce to Terra print]