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Ivan Le Lorraine Albright
1897–1983
BirthplaceNorth Harvey, Illinois, United States of America
Death placeWoodstock, Vermont, United States of America
BiographyNoted for the exaggerated realism of his portraits, figure paintings, and still life images, Ivan Albright was a master in rendering the effects of aging on the human body. Destined by their father for careers in art, Ivan and his identical twin Malvin (1897–1983), who became a sculptor, were the sons of Adam Emory Albright (1862–1957), a hugely popular painter of idealizing images of rural children for which the boys frequently posed. At age eight the twins began taking drawing lessons with their father. In 1916, after a year at Northwestern University, Ivan transferred to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied architecture and engineering. His World War I service in France as a medical draughtsman, which required close scrutiny of wounded flesh and anatomy, was one source of his artistic interest in themes of mortality.
Beginning in 1920, Albright studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where his talents for life and portrait painting were recognized. Graduating with honors in 1923, he then briefly studied at the venerable Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and New York's National Academy of Design. Albright launched his painting career in 1925, working in a studio in Warrenville, Illinois, near Chicago, that he would share with Malvin until 1947.
Albright's obsessively detailed paintings of the late 1920s defined his idiosyncratic mature style, which emphasizes the physical imperfections of ordinary people and objects. Choosing titles for his works that evoke time's passage and the inevitability of decay and death, Albright drew on the long tradition of the so-called vanitas, a symbolic representation of the vanity of worldly ambition. Even his own self-portraits, which he made throughout his career, expressed his morbid fascination with the unflattering evidence of mortality. Early in his career, he wrote in his notebook: "The tomorrow of death is what appeals to me. It is greater than life - stronger than human ties." [Michael Croyden, 1978, p. 55.]
Working with brushes as fine as a single hair, Albright labored over his meticulous canvases and priced them accordingly. With few buyers, for several years he relied for financial support on his father and on occasional work as a carpenter. Nonetheless, he exhibited in Chicago and beyond to general acclaim. In 1941, one of his paintings won top prizes at major exhibitions in New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Two years later, Albright was commissioned to create the title painting for a film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, a story in which a portrait likeness visibly ages while its human subject remains outwardly untouched by time. In 1950 he achieved full membership in the National Academy of Design. He was among eleven American artists invited to submit self-portraits to Florence's Galleria degli Uffizi (Uffizi Museum) in 1981. A prolific printmaker as well as painter, Albright traveled widely from the late 1940s on, and made his home in Vermont beginning in 1965.
Beginning in 1920, Albright studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where his talents for life and portrait painting were recognized. Graduating with honors in 1923, he then briefly studied at the venerable Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and New York's National Academy of Design. Albright launched his painting career in 1925, working in a studio in Warrenville, Illinois, near Chicago, that he would share with Malvin until 1947.
Albright's obsessively detailed paintings of the late 1920s defined his idiosyncratic mature style, which emphasizes the physical imperfections of ordinary people and objects. Choosing titles for his works that evoke time's passage and the inevitability of decay and death, Albright drew on the long tradition of the so-called vanitas, a symbolic representation of the vanity of worldly ambition. Even his own self-portraits, which he made throughout his career, expressed his morbid fascination with the unflattering evidence of mortality. Early in his career, he wrote in his notebook: "The tomorrow of death is what appeals to me. It is greater than life - stronger than human ties." [Michael Croyden, 1978, p. 55.]
Working with brushes as fine as a single hair, Albright labored over his meticulous canvases and priced them accordingly. With few buyers, for several years he relied for financial support on his father and on occasional work as a carpenter. Nonetheless, he exhibited in Chicago and beyond to general acclaim. In 1941, one of his paintings won top prizes at major exhibitions in New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Two years later, Albright was commissioned to create the title painting for a film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, a story in which a portrait likeness visibly ages while its human subject remains outwardly untouched by time. In 1950 he achieved full membership in the National Academy of Design. He was among eleven American artists invited to submit self-portraits to Florence's Galleria degli Uffizi (Uffizi Museum) in 1981. A prolific printmaker as well as painter, Albright traveled widely from the late 1940s on, and made his home in Vermont beginning in 1965.