Background

Ivan Albright was born on February 20, 1897 in Harvey, Illinois, United States. He was a son of Adam Emory Albright, a landscape painter, and Clara Wilson Albright. Also, Ivan had a twin brother, Malvin.

Education

Initially, together with his brother Malvin, Ivan studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. Some time later, Albright attended the Northwestern University, where he remained for a short period. When he left the university, he enrolled at the University of Illinois in Urbana–Champaign to study Architecture.

Later, the painter studied briefly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the National Academy of Design in New York.

Career

In 1927, Ivan Albright settled down in Warrenville, Illinois. During that time, he devoted himself to painting. In 1930, Ivan completed his work, entitled "Into the World Came a Soul Called Ida", a portrait of an aging, flabby woman, looking into a mirror. The same year, the painter held his first solo exhibition in Chicago. In 1931, Albright started to paint the work "That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door)", which was completed ten years later.

In 1943, he was working on the title painting for Albert Lewin's film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray". His realistic, but exaggerated, depictions of decay and corruption made him very well suited to undertake such a project. During the 1970's, Albright was a visiting artist and lecturer at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.

During his lifetime, Ivan Albright also worked as a printer and engraver. He produced more than twenty self-portraits during the last three years of his life, even on his deathbed, drawing the final works after a stroke.

Achievements

• One of Albright’s most famous paintings, entitled "That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door)", won a medal at three major exhibitions in Chicago, New York and Philadelphia in 1941.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Nags Head, Cape Hatteras

  • Mt. Semeru, Jadka-kura, Java

  • Self-Portrait (No.18)

  • Near Prague, Czechoslovakia

  • Divided and Divided

  • Hail to the Pure

  • Copenhagen, Denmark

  • Ranch Wyoming

  • Self-Portrait (No.16)

  • I Drew A Picture in the Sand and the Water Washed It Away

  • Self Portrait Drinking

  • Copenhagen, Denmark

  • Burgomeister with Key

  • Tahiti

  • Nile River at Aswan, Egypt

  • Self-Portrait

  • Near Eromsoe, Norway

  • Fez Morocco

  • St. Mary's River, Georgia

  • Jackson Hole, Wyoming

  • Inland Sea, Japan

  • Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida

  • The wild bunch (hole in the wall gang)

  • Portrait of Mary Block

  • Self-Portrait

  • And Man Created God in His Own Image

  • Pray for These Little Ones (Perforce They Live Together)

  • Moscow

  • St. Mary's Black River is Blue, Georgia

  • Self-Portrait

  • Memories of the Past

  • Captain Joseph Medill Patterson

  • Road to Kairouan, Tunisia

  • There Were No Flowers Tonight

  • The Farmer's kitchen

  • Self-Portrait (No.3)

  • Michigan Summer Days

  • Nude

  • Seaman

  • Ah God, Herrings, the Glittering Sea

  • "And the day ran into the night, memories..."

  • Inland Sea

  • Road Augsburg to Munich, Germany

  • Among those left

  • Self-Portrait

  • I Slept With The Starlight On My Face

  • View from the Hotel Window of Roof of Guild Hall, Brussels, Belgium

  • View from Hotel Window, Prinsenstraat Amsterdam, Holland

  • The Vermonter

  • The Picture of Dorian Gray

  • Josephine and Adam

  • Self-Portrait

  • Self-Portrait (No.20)

  • The Lineman

  • Bridal Ten Sleep Falls

  • Brieve

  • That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door)

  • Flesh

  • Platter under Georgia Fish

  • Maine Coast

  • Alicia's Azaleas on St. Mary's River

  • The Amazon River, Iquitos, Peru

  • The Temptation of St. Anthony

  • Self-Portrait

  • Wherefore Now Ariseth the Illusion of a Third Dimension

  • This Ichnolite of Mine,

  • Maker of Dreams

  • Poor Room

  • Self Portrait Face

  • Self-Portrait - 55 East Division Street

  • The Rustlers

  • A Face from Georgia

  • I Walk To and Fro Through Civilization

  • Three Trees, Georgia

  • View from Room 603, Watergate, Washington, D.C.

  • Self Portrait Smoking

  • Self-Portrait

  • Moscow

Views

Quotations: "A painting should be a piece of philosophy — or why do it?"

"A color is as strong as the impression it creates."

"Loneliness is not a fault but a condition of existence."

Membership

Ivan was a member of American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Academy Arts and Sciences and American Watercolor Society.

• National Academy of Design , United States

  1942

Connections

Ivan was married to Josephine Medill Patterson. Their marriage produced four children — Joseph Medill Patterson, Alice (Patterson) Arlen, Adam Medill and Blandina Van Etten. Also, Albright was a father-in-law of future United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a former wife of his son Joseph Medill Patterson.

Father:

Adam Emory Albright

Mother:

Clara Wilson Albright

child:

Joseph Medill Patterson

child:

Alice (Patterson) Arlen

child:

Adam Medill

child:

Blandina Van Etten

Wife:

Josephine Medill Patterson

Daughter-in-law:

Madeleine Albright

Brother:

Malvin Albright

References

• Ivan Albright
  1998
• Ivan Albright: A Retrospective Exhibition
  1965