Ivan Albright
Ivan Le Lorraine Albright (1897 - 1983) was a magic realist painter and
artist, most renowned for his self-portraits, character studies, and still
lifes.
Ivan Albright and his identical twin Malvin were
born near Chicago in North Harvey, Illinois, to Adam Emory Albright and
Clara Wilson Albright. Their father was a landscape painter, and came from
a family of master gunsmiths, whose original name was "Albrecht". The
brothers were inseparable during childhood, and throughout much of their
young adulthood. Both enrolled in The Art Institute of Chicago, a
coin-flip deciding that Ivan would study painting and Malvin sculpture.
Ivan particularly admired the work of El Greco and Rembrandt, but was
quick to develop a style all his own.
Among Albright's typically dark, mysterious works
are some of the most meticulously executed paintings ever made, often
requiring years to complete. Lace curtains or splintered wood would be
recreated using brushes of a single hair. The amount of effort that went
into his paintings made him quite possessive of them. Even during the
Great Depression he charged 30 to 60 times what comparable artists were
charging, with the result that sales were infrequent. In order to survive
he relied on the support of his father, and took odd carpentering jobs. An
early painting of his, The Lineman won an award and made the cover
of Electric Light and Power, a trade magazine. However his stooped
and forlorn portrayal caused controversy among the readership, who did not
consider such an image representative. The editors later distanced
themselves from Albright's work.
Albright focused on a few themes through most of
his works, particularly death, life, the material and the spirit, and the
effects of time. He painted very complex works, and their titles matched
their complexity. He would not name a painting until it was complete, at
which time he would come up with several possibilities, more poetic than
descriptive, before deciding on one. Such an example is Poor Room -
There is No Time, No End, No Today, No Yesterday, No Tomorrow, Only the
Forever, and Forever and Forever Without End (The Window), the last
two words actually describing the painting (it was as such the painting is
generally referred). Another painting, And Man Created God in His Own
Image, was called God Created Man in His Own Image when it
toured the South. One of his most famous paintings, which took him some
ten years to complete, was titled That Which I Should Have Done I Did
Not Do (The Door), which won top prize at three major exhibitions in
New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia in 1941. The prize at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York earned him a $3,500 purchase award
and a place in the permanent collection, but, not willing to part with the
work for less than $125,000, Albright took the First medal instead,
allowing him to keep the painting.
In 1943 he was commissioned to create 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. His brother was chosen to do the original uncorrupted painting of
Gray, but another artist's was used in the film. Ivan's was a great
success, and made him somewhat of an instant celebrity.
Albright was a prolific artist throughout his
life, working as a printer and engraver as well as a painter. He made his
own paints and charcoal, and carved his own elaborate frames. He was a
stickler for detail, creating elaborate setups for paintings before
starting work. He was obsessive about lighting to the point that he
painted his studio black, and wore black clothing to cut out potential
glare.
