ENDNOTES:

[1] This essay is for Kathleen A. and Bob M. Cozzolino. Portions of this essay are based on my master’s thesis, “The Truth About Ivan Albright: A Window on the Self,” which was written between March and December, 1999. Barbara Copeland Buenger has been my advisor at The University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her support, friendship, and advice helped sharpen my ideas and approach to this essay. The first monograph on Albright was written by Michael Croydon, Ivan Albright, (New York: Abbeville Press, 1978) and is out of print. At present, only the recent exhibition catalogue: Susan Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago and Hudson Hills Press, 1997) is in print. A critical biography, collection of writings, catalogue of works, or interpretive study of his paintings has yet to appear. The recent catalogue really served to reintroduce Albright to the world outside of Chicago. In doing so, however, the authors were able to correct and add to previous commentary and produced the most comprehensive single text on Albright to date. Over the years there have been four other exhibition catalogues devoted to the artist - each well under seventy-five pages: Frederick Sweet et. al., Ivan Albright: A Retrospective Exhibition, (Chicago and New York: Art Institute of Chicago, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1964); Michael Croydon and Gael Grayson, Graven Image: The Prints of Ivan Albright 1931-1977, (Lake Forest, IL: Lake Forest College, 1978); Richard R. Brettell and Phylis Floyd, Ivan Albright: The Late Self-Portraits, (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College, Hood Museum of Art, 1986); Phylis Floyd, The Ivan Albright Collection, (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College, Hood Museum of Art 1987). One of the most substantial discussions of Albright appears in Mitchell Douglas Kahan, Subjective Currents in American Painting of the 1930s, (Ph.D dissertation, City University of New York, 1983), esp. pp.73-110.

[2] Two of the more interesting attempts to provide a broader social context for his work appear in: Paul Von Blum, The Art of Social Conscience, (New York: Universe Books, 1976), pp.120-123; and Greta Berman and Jeffrey Wechsler, Realism and Realities: The Other Side of American Painting, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Art Gallery, 1981).

[3] He exhibited a watercolor titled The Oaks in Winter (1918; now lost) at the Art Institute of Chicago’s 30th Annual Exhibition of Watercolors, June 8 - July 9, 1918. The most comprehensive Albright exhibition history to date appears in: Op. cit., Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright , pp.193-96.

[4] Paul Judge reported in his visit to Ivan Albright’s studio that Albright was planning to show his recent and ongoing suite of self-portraits “at a major museum.” The exhibit became “The Last Works of Ivan Albright,” and was shown at the Art Institute of Chicago from April 14 to May 26. Paul Judge, “Light, Shadow and Ivan Albright,” Woodstock Common, Vol. 1, No. 1, Summer 1983, pp.5-7, 18 and 19. This series was not shown in its entirety until 1986, at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. For the Chicago exhibition see Michael Bonesteel, “In a Museum of Mirrors,” Art in America Vol. 72, No. 11, December 1984, pp.143-47. For the Hood Museum showing see op. cit., Hanover, Ivan Albright: The Late Self-Portraits.

[5] Robert Cozzolino, “Ivan Albright: A Chronology,” in op. cit. Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright, pp.177-191, is the most comprehensive and accurate chronology to date.

[6] A catalogue raisonné has yet to appear, though is in progress by this writer.

[7] Ivan Albright Notebook, 1984.6.8, p.R-1, 1978, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago. The numbering of Albright’s notebooks in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago was arbitrary and does not necessarily indicate chronology. Some of Albright’s notebooks contain entries that are decades apart, making a strict chronological order problematic anyway. They are referred to here by their Ryerson and Burnham Library Archive catalogue numbers. Additionally, the Art Institute notebooks were paginated by a registrar or cataloger single-sided only. Therefore, in the subsequent footnotes, page numbers are given as follows: page 3, for instance or page 3v (“v” denoting page three, verso). Unless otherwise noted, all quoted notebooks are in the Ivan Albright Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[8] See for instance, his responses to Katharine Kuh in The Artist’s Voice: Talks with Seventeen Artists, (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), see esp. pp.25 and 28. Albright adamantly refused to be classified in: William Inge, “Illinois Artist’s Work Placed on Exhibit Here,” St. Louis Star Times, October 1943. Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume one, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[9] See: Paul Cummings, interview with Ivan Albright, 2/5-6/1972, Oral History Collection, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., pp.19 (Josef Albers) and 24 (Andrew Wyeth) for just two of many examples.

[10] For Albright’s published statements, see: J. Zavel Jacobson, Art of Today: Chicago, 1933, (Chicago: L.M. Stein, 1932), p.35; Ralph M. Pearson, Experiencing American Pictures, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943), pp.184-185, 187; Alfred H. Barr Jr. and Dorothy C. Miller, American Realists and Magic Realists, (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1943), p.25; Introduction by Allen S. Weller, Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture, (Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois, College of Fine and Applied Arts, 1953), p.162; John I. H. Baur, Editors, New Art in America: Fifty Painters of the Twentieth Century, (Greenwich, CT: 1957), p.202; Op. cit., Ivan Albright: A Retrospective Exhibition, pp.16-17; Ann C. Van Devanter and Alfred V. Frankenstein, American Self-Portraits 1670-1973, (Washington DC: International Exhibitions Foundation,1974), p.158; and Ivan Albright: Travels of an Artist, (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Museum of Art 1982), n.p..

[11] In a 1972 interview, Albright demonstrated more than cursory knowledge of the trends in contemporary art at various points in his life, including the most recent, op. cit., Cummings interview, pp.52-53.

[12] Albright works which wound up back on the market (mostly watercolors, prints, drawings) were often sold through ACA Galleries or Kennedy Galleries, both in New York. Albright turned down gallery affiliation at least once. A letter to Albright from Earle Ludgin (Earle Ludgin Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.), 2/15/1944 (while the painter was in Hollywood working on Dorian Gray) states, “Kirk Askew, Jr., who runs the Durlacher Bros. Gallery in New York... represents Tchelitchew and a number of other people and I think does a creditable job... He expressed an interest in you and ... would like to represent you in New York. He is young, honest, has a lot of taste and knows all of the important museum men. Would you be interested in such a New York connection? I warned him that you don’t intend to sell your pictures, which didn’t bother him a bit.” Albright declined. Journalists regularly had a field day reporting his absurdly extravagant prices - particularly during the Depression - which were merely placed for show since he never intended to sell anything.

[13] In the 1940s, Albright began to strategically offer particular works for sale to high profile museums and retained a core body of his major works to be placed in one concentrated place later in life. For evidence of this see Earle Ludgin Papers, letter to Albright from Ludgin, 7/19/1948. Albright had asked Ludgin to write a letter of support and recommend that Woman (Museum of Modern Art, New York) and Fleeting Time, Thou Hast Left Me Old (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) be purchased for museum collections. He had much earlier presented paintings as gifts to The Layton Art Gallery (now the Milwaukee Art Museum) and The Hackley Art Gallery of Muskegon, Michigan.

[14] Adam Emory Albright, For Art’s Sake, (Chicago and Crawfordsville, Indiana: The Lakeside Press, 1953), pp.97-98.

[15] Courtney Donnell, “A Painter Am I: Ivan Albright,” p.16, in Op. cit., Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright, 1977.

[16] Malvin died on September 14, and Ivan on 11/18/1983. For Malvin, see: Kenan Heise, “Malvin M. Albright, Chicago Artist,” Chicago Tribune, 9/16/1983, Sec. 2, p.10. Ivan, Malvin and Lisle were given middle names in honor of the artists: Claude Lorrain, Carl von Marr, and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Ivan dropped his middle name in 1950, signing his works “Ivan Albright” thereafter.

[17] Op. cit., Donnell, “A Painter Am I: Ivan Albright,” in op. cit., Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright, 1977, p.14; op. cit., Croydon, Ivan Albright, p.21.

[18] Adam relays tales of his student days in op. cit., Adam Emory Albright, For Art’s Sake, pp.56-75. For more on Carl Marr see Ann Kramer Bernadin, Carl Marr: An American Artist in Munich, (MA Thesis, California State University, Northridge, 1993).

[19] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.1

[20] Op. cit., Albright, For Art’s Sake, p.98.

[21] Op. cit., Cummings interview, pp.2-3.

[22] Op. cit., Sweet, “A Tradition of Fine Craftsmanship”, Ivan Albright: A Retrospective Exhibition, p.13.

[23] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.1.

[24] Op. cit., Cummings interview, pp.3-4.

[25] Interview by Sondra Gair, National Public Radio, c.1978; I am grateful to Courtney Graham Donnell for making her transcription and taped copy of the original broadcast available to me.

[26] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.2.

[27] Op. cit., Gair interview, p.2.

[28] Grace Glueck, “An Artist in the Flesh,” The New York Times, 2/7/1965, sec. 2, p.20.

[29] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.3.

[30] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.5; op. cit., Sweet, “A Tradition of Fine Craftsmanship,” p.12.

[31] Op. cit., Sweet, “A Tradition of Fine Craftsmanship,” p.14. Dr. James Fleming Wilson, “was a medical doctor and, as a side-line, an encyclopaedist (sic).” Albright discusses this action in op. cit., Cummings interview, p.68.

[32] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.47. The works are From Yesterday’s Day and The Image After (both private collection). They depict items Adam left home with on his way to become an artist at the age of eighteen.

[33] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.3; Sterling North, “The Man Who Drew Wounds,” Chicago Daily News, 8/5/1931, p.12. The subject was an Ascension of the Virgin; the altarpiece has yet to be located.

[34] Peter Hastings Falk, editor, Art Institute of Chicago, The Annual Exhibition Record, (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1990), p.58.

[35] The Albrights would have had an added outrage and impulse to fight as Adam’s friend and frequent visitor to the house, Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915), had died in the sinking of the Lusitania (1915). For Hubbard, see: Marie Via and Marjorie Searl (Eds.), Head, Heart and Hand: Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters, (University of Rochester Press, 1994). In op. cit., Cummings interview, p.3, Albright recalled the artist-friends who visited Adam Emory, making special note of Hubbard. At the age of thirty-six, the charming, already wealthy Hubbard left his job as executive of a Buffalo New York soap and mail order company to become a writer. What began as a modest printing establishment was soon transformed into an inspired community of over five-hundred artists known as the Roycroft Shop. Between 1895 and 1915, Hubbard’s community of craftsmen produced a dazzling array of designs and objects for a staggering variety of purposes. The enterprising temperament and engaging personality of successful artists of vision such as Hubbard surely contributed to Ivan Albright’s fascination with professional artistry, in contrast to how he viewed others in Adam’s circle.

[36] During World War I, Grant Wood (1891-1942) was assigned to make camouflage in Washington DC. Although a suitable task for trained artists during wartime, it is probable that Ivan and Malvin sought to be kept out of battle through such an assignment. For Wood see: Brady M. Roberts (et. al.), Grant Wood: An American Master Revealed, (Davenport Museum of Art, Iowa, 1995); and James N. Dennis, Grant Wood: A Study in American Art and Culture, (New York, Viking Press, 1975), p.23. The Albright brothers’ and perhaps even Wood’s own interest in camouflage may have stemmed from Abbott Henderson Thayer’s (1849-1921) pioneering work on the subject. See: Ross Anderson, Abbott Henderson Thayer, (Everson Museum, Syracuse, New York, 1982), especially, chapter 4, “Abbott Thayer’s Theories of Natural Camouflage,” pp.112-126; and Alexander Nemerov, "Vanishing Americans: Abbot Thayer, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Attraction of Camouflage," American Art 11, 2 (Summer 1997), pp.50-81. For Thayer’s discoveries, see: Gerald Henderson Thayer, Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom: An Exposition of the Laws of Disguise Through Color and Pattern, (New York: Macmillan Co., 1909), illustrated by Abbott Thayer.

[37] Op. cit., Cummings interview, pp.6-9 for his World War I experiences.

[38] Lena M. McCauley, “McCauley’s Point of View: Stories about Our Artists,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World,, 2/12/1929, p.10. McCauley referred to Ivan as Marvin in this article, a mistake she had made before and would repeat. In this she was not unique, although it was usually Malvin’s name that was mangled.

[39] Op. cit., North, Chicago Daily News, 8/5/1931, p.12.

[40] Op. cit., Kuh, The Artist’s Voice, Talks with Seventeen Artists, p.23. In 1960, when asked by Katharine Kuh: “Do you think your experience as a medical draftsman in World War I influenced your work?” Albright responded: “Not at all. If I hadn’t done that, I would have been doing something else.”

[41] Op. cit., North, Chicago Daily News, 8/5/1931, p.12.

[42] Op. cit., North, Chicago Daily News, 8/5/1931, p.12.

[43] A.G.S. Enser, A Subject Bibliography of the First World War: Books in English, 1914-1987, (Brookfield, Vt., Gower, 1990) is a good place to begin for a wide variety of literature on the war and its effects.

[44] Otto Dix 1891-1969, (Tate Gallery, London, 1992), p.140. Indeed, it is Dix who comes closest to Albright in a number of works of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Even a comparison between Albright’s World War I watercolor sketches and those of Dix from a few years later reveal startling similarities of vision. See for instance, War Wounded (1922, private collection), op. cit., Otto Dix 1891-1969, cat # 63, p.140.

[45] Op. cit., Jacobson, Art of Today, p.35.

[46] Ivan Albright, Notebook, 1984.6.6, p.36, 1931, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[47] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.9.

[48] Op. cit., Albright, For Art’s Sake, pp.62-63.

[49] Op. cit., Albright, For Art’s Sake, preceeding tales, pp.63-64.

[50] Harriet and Sidney Janis, “Albright: Compulsive Painter,” View, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1943, p.26. The Janises wrote, “He explains that he had been conditioned in advance to drawing wounds since his father, as monitor of the morgue, had dissected corpses while studying with Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy; also that his grandfather had been a surgeon.”

[51] Op. cit., North, Chicago Daily News, 8/5/1931, p.12.

[52] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.8.

[53] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.8.

[54] For Perkins see: Educational Buildings by Perkins, Fellows and Hamilton Architects, Chicago, (Chicago: Press of The Blakely Printing Co., 1925), and Eleanor Ellis Perkins, Perkins of Chicago, Evanston, 1966. The well-known architectural firm, Perkins and Will descends from Dwight Heald Perkins’ original practice and is still based in Chicago.

[55] For examples of the kind of work Albright might have done here, see: C. Stanley Taylor and Vincent R. Bliss (Eds.)., Hotel Planning and Outfitting, (Chicago: Albert Pick and Co., 1928).

[56] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.10.

[57] Marie Walsh Sharpe, 1921 is in the collection of The Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, CO; The Philosopher, 1922, is in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum. Both are illustrated in op. cit., Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright, p.19 and plate 3.

[58] Notebook, 1984.6.4, p.38, c.1926.

[59] Notebook, 1984.6.7, p.3, c.1928.

[60] Notebook, 1984.6.4, p.61 v., c.1926.

[61] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.4.

[62] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.11.

[63] Examples of these are John C. L. Sparkes, A Manual of Artistic Anatomy for the use of Students in Art, (London: Bailliere, Tindall & Cox, 1922), and notably, the journal, Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, which devoted part of an October 1919 issue to Matthias Grunewald, one artist in whom Albright was interested. The journal covered a variety of topics, including non-western art, expressionism from Germany and elsewhere, product design and old masters, including Velasquez and El Greco. Many titles are listed passim in 1984.6.1-4, 1923-26. See Albright Notebook, 1984.6.8 p. D-1, for the contemporary journals L’Illustration, El Ilustrado, Nuevo Mundo and La Espera. He also made note of Carl Einstein’s Die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, (Berlin, 1926) in Notebook, 1984.6.45, p.11 (1926) referring to it as a “good book.”

[64] Possibly, The Baptism of Christ, 1500/05 (Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection, 1933.1023)

[65] Perugino: Notebook, 1984.6.1 pp.38 and 50v, 1923. Correggio: Notebook, 1984.6.1 p.32, January 1923. Both paintings are unlocated.

[66] Notebook, 1984.6.2 passim, but see esp. pp.7-12, 1924.

[67] Notebook, 1984.6.3 pp.7-8, c.1923/24.

[68] Notebook, 1984.6.4 p.33 c.1924.

[69] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.10. Adam Emory could be quite vocal with complaints and his strong success as an artist and even better success at real estate would combine to give many an envious competitor much to dislike.

[70] For Carles see: Barbara Ann Boese Wolanin, Arthur B. Carles, 1882-1952: Philadelphia Modernist, (Ph.D dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison and UMI, 1981), see esp. p.266.

[71] For Grafly: Dorothy Grafly Drummond, The Sculptor’s Clay: Charles Grafly (1862-1929), (Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Kansas, 1996). For Garber see: Kathleen A Foster, Daniel Garber 1880-1958, (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1980).

[72] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.16. “McCarter abandoned illustration he had illustrated for McClures, Harpers, Scribners, etc... after World War I and ‘devoted himself to paint - in his own words, to the contemplation and painting of ‘the light of an hour of a day,’ and ‘the color and movement of a chime of bells.’” R. Sturgis Ingersoll, Henry McCarter 1864-1942, (New York: New Art Circle, 1943).

[73] Charles W. Hawthorne, Hawthorne on Painting: from Student’s Notes Collected by Mrs. Charles W. Hawthorne, (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1960), p.17.

[74] Op. cit., Rossen (Ed.)., Ivan Albright, p.19 for illustration of this work.

[75] Op. cit., Rossen (Ed.)., Ivan Albright, p.55 for illustration of this work.

[76] The Grand Muveran, 1912 (1926.211). Albright sketched a few Hodler paintings in his early notebooks, among them are, The Consecrated One (1893/94), Day (1900), and Dialogue with Nature (1884). Notebook, 1984.6.5, pp.12-13, 21, c.1925. For Hodler see: Sharon L. Hirsh, Ferdinand Hodler, (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1982).

[77] Op. cit., Croydon, Ivan Albright, p.103. Maroger was the author of a much-consulted book, The Secret Formulas and Techniques of the Old Masters, (New York, 1940), trans. by Eleanor Beckham.

[78] This building is now the Warrenville Historical Society. For seasonal hours, first contact the Warrenville Public Library, 28 W. 751 Stafford Place, Warrenville, IL 60555, 630/393-1171.

[79] The scrapbooks are now part of the Ivan Albright Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, Art Institute of Chicago. Eventually, Albright had a clipping service collect notices for him, due to the sheer volume of press he received.

[80] Notebook, 1984.6.3, p.4.

[81] Notebook, 1984.6.4, p.67v., c.1926.

[82] Notebook, 1984.6.4, p.61v, c.1926.

[83] Notebook, 1984.6.2, pp.2v-3, 1924.

[84] Op. cit., Cummings interview, pp.2-3.

[85] A few examples: Notebook, 1984.6.3, p.60, 1984.6.5, passim, 1984.6.6, p.19v.

[86] He and Malvin traveled to California several times during this period to visit their parents who were wintering there and had even toyed with the idea of moving there. For example see: “Of Timely Interest,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 11/18/1924, p.8. He and Malvin went to Laguna, California, stopping on the way in Santa Fe, Taos and the Grand Canyon. Another trip west the next year was featured in R. A. Lennon, “Brothers Establish Studio in a Church,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 5/26/1925, p.4. An illustration of his Old Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico, appears with the article. For this particular trip see: “If He Paints, He’s Ivan; If He ‘Sculpts’ He’s Malvin,” San Diego Union, 2/13/1927, Ivan Albright scrapbook volume one, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[87] Notebook, 1984.6.4, p.45v.

[88] There has yet to be an adequate exploration of this painting as it relates to the fact that Ivan and Malvin were identical twins. Earlier – Joshua Kind, “Albright: Humanist of Decay,” Art News, Vol. 63, No. 7, November 1964, p.70, and “Reassessing Albright,” New Art Examiner, Vol. 6, No. 3, December 1978, p.10 – had pointed to the need to explore the psychology of their twin-ness. At the same time Ivan did a portrait of Malvin, Malvin produced a sculpture of Ivan. See op. cit., Donnell, “A Painter Am I: Ivan Albright,” in op. cit., Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright, 1977, p.21 for an illustration of this work. Hawthorne and Polá_ek had engaged in a similar exercise and both works are in the Art Institute of Chicago: Charles W. Hawthorne, 1917 (bronze, 1918.30) and Albin Polá_ek, 1917 (oil on canvas, 1917.266). It is unknown whether this was an inspiration for Ivan and Malvin, but entirely plausible.

[89] Inscribed on the bottom part of the frame is an early title, “Verily Verily He Loveth Me and I Him.”

[90] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.32.

[91] The Lineman was illustrated in The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 2/14/1928, p.3.

[92] “A Storm,” Art Digest, Vol. 5, No. 1, July 1928, pp.1 and 23. See also: “ ‘Lineman’ Winning Painting at Institute Stirs Workers,” Chicago Daily Journal, 5/14/1928, p.4.

[93] “Some Interesting Comment on Our May Issue Cover Design,” Electric Light and Power, Vol. 6, No. 6, June 1928, p.115.

[94] Electric Light and Power, Vol. 6, No. 8, August 1928.

[95] For this work see: American Paintings and Sculpture to 1945 in the Carnegie Museum of Art, (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with The Carnegie Museum of Art, 1992), pp.42-43.

[96] Several previous writers have mentioned the apparent similarity to Baroque saints. For one: op. cit., Croydon, Ivan Albright, p.39. There is precedence however for this comparison, previously unnoticed. In Notebook, 1984.6.5, p.16, Albright actually made a thumbnail sketch resembling an altarpiece which might have been his own idea or plan. It was to include wings devoted to “dance, music, opera, and symphony.” It is not known if he executed such a project, but suggests that these later, separate paintings may have been the residue of such a project.

[97] Notebook, 1984.6.4, p.75v, June 1927.

[98] Incidentally, the Museum of Modern Art’s Woman entered the collection in 1948 with its original carved frame, but is shown by that institution in a generic, thin black rectangular modernist surround.

[99] For Albright’s models, see op. cit., Croydon, Ivan Albright; op. cit., Donnell, “A Painter Am I: Ivan Albright,” in op. cit., Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright, 1977, and op. cit., American Paintings and Sculpture to 1945 in the Carnegie Museum of Art, pp. 42-44. Albright mentions some of the models in his notebooks and in op. cit., Cummings interview.

[100] Conversation with the author, 2/25/1997.

[101] “Did Its Beauty Cause Toledo to Ban This?,” Art Digest, Vol. 3, No. 20, September 1929, p.5.

[102] Frances Farmer, “Honored Grant Painting Lacks Spark of Love,” Chicago American, 10/31/1927, Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume one, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[103] Meyer Levin, “A Young Man’s Fancy,” Chicago Daily News, 10/1928, Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume one, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago. Rudolph Weisenborn was one of the most politically and formally progressive Chicago artists active in the first part of the twentieth-century. An extensive essay appears in this book on the artist.

[104] Charles Fabens Kelley, “Chicago Artists’ Annual Show,” Christian Science Monitor, 2/13/1928, p.8.

[105] Dorothy Grafly, “Academy’s Salon This Year Proves a Bit Disturbing,” Philadelphia Public Ledger, 1/27/1929, p.10.

[106] Tom Vickerman, “Albright’s Ogres Unmask as Angels,” Chicago Evening Post, Magazine of the Art World, 8/26/1930, p.3.

[107] C. J. Bulliet, “Albright Tames Wilde Baers at the Art Institute Summer Shows,” Chicago Evening Post, 7/28/1931, Art section, p.5.

[108] For the relevant exchanges see: C. J. Bulliet, “Artless Comment,” Chicago Evening Post, 11/23/1935, sec 3, p.4; C. J. Bulliet, “Artless Comment,” Chicago Evening Post, 12/14/1935, sec. 3, p.4.

[109] Notebook, 1984.6.6, p.30, 1930.

[110] Op. cit., Kuh, The Artist’s Voice, Talks with Seventeen Artists, p.23.

[111] Ivan writes about the work he is doing in Laguna Beach in Notebook 1984.6.7 p.13, 1/23/1929 and p. 24, also January. That Malvin was also working in Laguna beach is discussed in: Lucy Key Miller, “Front Views and Profiles: Heavy the Coat,” Chicago Tribune, 3/26/1954, sec. 2, p. 10.

[112] In considering Albright's figural works of the late twenties, it is useful to recall Albright's admiration for and study under Charles W. Hawthorne. For comparison see, The Paintings of Charles Hawthorne, (Storrs: University of Conecticut Museum of Art, 1968). For instance in Hawthorne's paintings, April (1920, cat. # 29; exhibited at AIC 1927), The Captain's Wife (1924, cat. # 36; exhibited at AIC, 1925 and 1927), and Mrs. Bertha Davis (1929, cat. # 39) he and Albright approach form, composition and show compassion in the painting of flesh. Heavy the Oar was compared to Hawthorne's Calling of Saint Peter (c. 1900) by Weininger in op.cit., Rossen (Ed.) Ivan Albright, pp.57-58.

[113] Notebook, 1984.6.7 p.13, 1/23/1929.

[114] Op. cit., Chicago Evening Post, 8/26/1930, p.3.

[115] Albright talks about how he painted Ida, techniques and viewpoints in op. cit., Cummings interview, pp. 17, 37, 63-64. Particularly pages 63-64 concern walking around and how she posed. Specifically the “dizzying effect” is referred to in Albright, Notebook 1984.6.7 p.3v. The circumstances surrounding the modeling assignment were gleaned in: Interview with Ida Rogers by Courtney Graham Donnell with the assistance of Jennifer Stone, 7/1/1992, unpublished.

[116] The painting was illustrated in “Albright’s ‘Ida’ Wins Chicago Gold Medal,” Art Digest, Vol. 6, 12/15/1931, p.6. The Gold Medal was instituted after the Society withdrew their top honor, the Silver Medal, my thanks to the Illinois Historical Art Project for pointing this out to me which Albright had won the prior year, from the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago & Vicinity exhibitions. The work was illustrated again in Art Digest, Vol. 11, 2/1/1937, p.12. For the Silver medal see: Tom Vickerman, “Medals to Dalstrom, Albright, Chassaing,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 11/4/1930, p.3. For the Springfield prize see: Art Digest, Vol. 11, 2/1/1937, p.12, where the painting is illustrated. Ida was married to a Russian soccer player. Albright claimed that she was, “…in love with me.” Personal conversation between Suzanne Dryer Kaufman and Albright at the Art Institute in 1967.

[117] Christian Science Monitor, “20th Century Portraits,” 10/16/1943, p.8.

[118] See the Ivan Le Lorraine Albright timeline in this book for a list of his prizes. See also, op. cit., “Selected Exhibition History,” in op. cit., Ivan Albright, 1997.

[119] Malvin was denied a one-man exhibition at the Art Institute by its board of trustees that same year. Art Institute of Chicago Trustee Minutes, 10/31/1931. Though less successful as a painter and sculptor and certainly less radical in his approach than Ivan, Malvin worked alongside his brother on many similar projects through 1947. Malvin, however lived in the public shadow of his brother. With the exception of a few notes before 1926 or so, Malvin generally appears as a curious side note to discussions of Ivan’s peculiar work. On several occasions, newspaper reporters got Malvin’s name wrong, calling him Marvin, mistaking him for Ivan, or creating other name variations until he changed his name to Zsissly. Malvin initially adopted the pseudonym Zissly in 1932 to distance himself from his brother Ivan in his painting career. As such, Ivan, who nearly always appeared first in alphabetized exhibition catalogues would open and “Zissly” would close listings. When it became clear that Zissly wouldn’t always be last, the last “s” was added almost immediately: Malvin became Zsissly. He continued to exhibit sculpture under his birth name.

[120] Letter to William Burkholder from Ivan L. Albright, CELA Archives, Ryerson Library, Art Institute of Chicago, 2/11/1935. I wish to thank the Illinois Historical Art Project for this reference. His tenure as president of the Chicago Society of Artists was telling in that the group represented only modern artists who had split away from the conservative painters who had then formed their own association. A thorough treatment of all these art organizations may be found in the Art Organizations section of this book.

[121] Robert Silberman, “Chicago and New York, Ivan Albright,” Burlington Magazine, Vol. 139, No. 1134 September 1997, p.655.

[122] Daniel Catton Rich, “Ivan Le Lorraine Albright: Our Own Jeremiah,” Magazine of Art, Vol. 36, No. 2, February 1943, p.50.

[123] That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door), 1931-41 (Art Institute of Chicago, discussed below).

[124] The enormous, wide-ranging Depression-era federal arts projects have been considered by a variety of writers. For the programs in Illinois, see: George J. Mavigliano and Richard A. Lawson, The Federal Art Project in Illinois 1935-1943, (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990); and Maureen A. McKenna, After the Great Crash, New Deal Art in Illinois, (Springfield: Illinois State Museum, 1983).

[125] Peyton Boswell Jr., Modern American Painting, (New York, Dodd, Mead, 1939).

[126] “Chicago’s Foremost Painter Takes Issue with Art Critic,” Chicago Daily News, 12/13/1939, Christmas Book section, p.17.

[127] Ernest L. Heitkemp, “Why Not Pay All Artists Who Exhibit?,” Chicago Herald American (the Chicago Herald-Examiner became the Chicago Herald-American in 1939), Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume one, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago. See also, “Make Chicago an Art Center,” Chicago Sun, 1/10/1942, p.12. Some years later he took part in Artist’s Equity, a somewhat radical and socialistic leaning group in Chicago. C. J. Bulliet, “Art in Chicago,” Art Digest, Vol. 25, 5/15/1951, p.10. My thanks to the Illinois Historical Art Project for this reference.

[128] Dore Ashton, The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning, (New York: Penguin Books, 1983), p.64.

[129] “For Sale: $10,000,” Chicago American, 7/2/1934, p.17. Albright is shown looking rather dapper, with Flesh (Smaller Than Tears Are the Little Blue Flowers).

[130] Margarita Walker Dulac, “Ivan Albright: Mystic-Realist,” American Artist, Vol. 30, No. 1, January 1966, p.34.

[131] Op. cit., Croydon, Ivan Albright, p.197. See also op. cit, Croydon and Grayson, Graven Image: The Prints of Ivan Albright 1931-1977, n.p. cat. 1.

[132] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.65. The teaching records of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago are in the archives of the Ryerson and Burnham library, Art Institute of Chicago.

[133] “‘Educationally This is a Hollow Nut,’ Says Ivan Albright,” Chicago Daily News, 2/26/1941, p.14.

[134] Edith Weigle, “Logan Medal Is Awarded to Chicago Artists,” Chicago Tribune, 3/11/1941, p.15. He was featured in what could be considered his home town press in “Warrenville Resident’s Prize Picture on Display At Art Institute Exhibit, Wheaton Daily Journal, 3/11/1941, in Art Institute of Chicago scrapbooks, vol. 76, col. 2, p.51. Information courtesy of the Illinois Historical Art Project. He followed this with Honorable Mention at the Sears Academy of Fine Arts annual in Elgin, Illinois in May: “Winners in Elgin Show,” Art Digest, Vol. 15, 5/15/1941, p.11; The Norman Wait Harris Silver Medal, at the Art Institute’s annual exhibit of American artists and was named an Associate in National Academy of Design in 1942.

[135] The prize was awarded his That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do. C. J. Bulliet, “Prizes Awarded At Art Exhibit Opening Today,” Chicago Daily News, 10/29/1941, p.11.

[136] Ivan Le Lorrain sic Albright (America’s Most Distinguished Painter), “Chicago Art Exhibition Shakes Provincialism,” Chicago Herald-American, 6/4/1947, p.14. Thanks to Daniel Schulman for alerting me to this article.

[137] “Ivan Le Lorraine Albright, Chicago’s Foremost Painter, Decries the French Moderns,” Chicago Daily News, 7/3/1940, p.7.

[138] “Modernism Has a Field Day at Art Institute’s U.S. Show,” Chicago Herald-American, 11/5/1947, Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume two, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[139] Ivan LeLorrain sic Albright, “Water Color Judges Pursue Middle Road,” Chicago Herald-American, 11/6/1948, Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume two, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[140] “Albright Twins: They Paint Gruesome Masterpieces in an Abandoned Methodist Church,” Life, Vol. 16, No. 13, 3/27/1944, p.66.

[141] Notebook, 1984.6.8, p.G-1, c.1931.

[142] Notebook, 1984.6.4, p.38, c.1926.

[143] Katharine Kuh, The Open Eye: In Pursuit of Art, (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1971), p.4.

[144] See: Clement Greenberg, "The Crisis of the Easel Picture," reprinted in Arrogant Purpose, 1945-1949, vol. 2 of Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism. Edited by John O'Brian (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1986). See also Kirk Varnedoe and Pepe Karmel. Jackson Pollock. (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1998).

[145] Op. cit., Cummings interview, pp.38. See: “Artist of Decay,” Newsweek, Vol. 22, No. 22, 11/29/1943, pp.82, 84; for Albright’s press concocted alternate version of this story: “One project – a doll bedecked with white and cream satin and laces and lying in a glass case with jewelry – had to be abandoned after a year because “mice ate the clothes, someone swiped the jewelry, and the dress changed eight shades duller,” p.82.

[146] Notebook, 1984.6.23, p.4, 4/25/1963.

[147] Op. cit., Cummings interview, pp.31-33, for the making of this painting.

[148] Notes Albright made while working on The Door can be found in Notebooks: 9, pp.17, 28, 48-50 (c.1931-33); 11, pp.1-5 (1933); and 12, pp.6-10 (1937).

[149] Op. cit., Rich, Magazine of Art, February 1943, p.50.

[150] Notebook, 1984.6.5, p.64 (1926).

[151] There is at least one previous reference to Albright’s in-progress painting in the press, June Provines, “Front Views and Profiles,” Chicago Tribune, 11/28/1935, p.41. “Ivan Le Lorraine, has been working three years on a picture that isn’t finished yet. The painting portrays a door with a funeral wreath attached, and when completed is to show a hand turning the knob…The stone that serves as a doorstep is actually a tombstone, although you wouldn’t know it…”

[152] Dorothy Kantner, "American Artists 'Steal Show' At International Exhibition," Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph 10/13/1938, p. 18. Others noted the astonishing degree of finish in the "unfinished" work and expressed shock that the public chose it as the third most popular work. See also: Edward Alden Jewell, "In the Realm of Art: American Pictures at International," New York Times, 10/30/1938; Douglas Naylor, "Public Ignores 'Prize' Painting," The Pittsburgh Press 11/18/1938; Dorothy Kantner "Emotional Response Guides Public's Art Choices," Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph 12/4/1938: Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume one, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[153] According to records in the Archives of the Art Institute, the painting was collected from Albright on May 8, 1956 and returned to him on February 27, 1957. Ms. Kuh and Mr. Rich were very excited to have had the opportunity to exhibit Albright’s newest painting. In a letter to Albright dated 6/20/1955 Kuh wrote, “Dear Ivan/Dan Rich told me that you would be willing to lend your new painting, The Window to the Venice Biennale, Needless to say, I am thrilled beyond words and am writing this letter to show my pleasure…I want you to know how happy I am that you are letting us send the picture to Venice.” Art Institute Archives, Katharine Kuh Papers, box 13, folder 4.

[154] Letter to “Peaches” (Albright’s pet name for Elinor “Jerry” Freeman, nee Willis) from Albright, 8/25/1939, Ivan Albright Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Archives.

[155] Letter to “Peaches” from Albright, 9/7/1939, Ivan Albright Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Archives.

[156] Letter to Ms. Elinor Willis from Albright, 6/2/1941, Ivan Albright Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Archives.

[157] There is some evidence The Door originated from figural ideas, Notebook, 1984.6.9, p.5, c.1931. The thumbnail on this page shows a cloaked figure holding a large round object, strikingly close to the formal design of The Door. The inscription that accompanies the drawing reads, “When the great father death calls be ready.”

[158] For Rothko, see: Dore Ashton, About Rothko, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); Marc Glimcher and Mark Pollard (Eds.), The Art of Mark Rothko: Into an Unknown World, (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1991); Sheldon Nodelman, The Rothko Chapel Paintings: Origins, Structure, Meaning, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997); Jeffrey S. Weiss, Mark Rothko, (Washington: National Gallery of Art; New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, 1998).

[159] The painting garnered an enormous amount of local and national publicity when it debuted at the Art Institute. The Associated Press wire service picked up the story and spread it across the nation, including for example newspapers in Jackson, Michigan; Nampa, Indiana; Tacoma Washington; Ogden, Utah; Lubbock, Texas; Palm Beach, Florida; Norfolk, Nebraska; Meriden, Connecticut, among many, many others. Clippings may be found in the Art Institute of Chicago scrapbooks, Vol. 76, beginning November 1941, pp.101-105.

[160] Art Digest "Regional Review," 17, 8 (1/15/1943), p.16. The same article reported that Albright won a $125 war bond for Heavy the Oar at the "New Year Show" at the Butler Art Institute in Youngstown, Ohio.

[161] For Curry’s painting, see Patricia Junker, “Twilight of Americanism’s Golden Age: Curry’s Wisconsin Years, 1936-46,” pp.194-209, (esp. pp.202-207) in John Stuart Curry Inventing the Middle West, (Madison, WI: Elvehjem Museum of Art and New York, Hudson Hills Press, 1998). Junker does not mention the circumstances by which Curry was awarded the prize, for what is a far different painting from The Door.

[162] John Anthony Thwaites, "London Letter: The Tate Show: Misrepresenting American Art," Magazine of Art 39, 8 (Dec. 1946), p.382.

[163] This discussion owes much to the example and advice of film scholar Dr. Susan Doll, who presented the lecture “Albright, Artists, and Hollywood,” in conjunction with the Chicago presentation of the 1997 Albright retrospective, 3/9/1997.

[164] In addition to the previously mentioned high profile awards from three important national exhibitions, Albright was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s Twentieth Century Portraits, which traveled to ten national venues and American Realists and Magic Realists, which traveled to five other cities, including Toronto. For the itineraries, see Robert Cozzolino, "Selected Exhibition History," in op. cit., Rossen (Ed.) Ivan Albright, p.195. Both exhibitions were widely covered by the press and Albright was usually, if not always singled out. For two good reviews of American Realists and Magic Realists, see: Alfred Frankenstein, “Artists Look at Something Else Besides Themselves,” San Francisco Chronicle, 8/29/1943, This World section, p.15; and M.R. "Americans 1943: Realism and Magic Realism," Art Digest 17, 10 (2/15/1943), pp.6, 27. The Door attracted more attention in 1946 (see below) for among other reasons, its appearance at the Tate Gallery.

[165] Magner White, “Biography of a Photoplay,” Film and Radio Discussion Guide, Vol. 11, No. 7, April 1945, p.15. The entire issue was devoted to the MGM film, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

[166] Time, “Lavender and Old Bottles,” Vol. 38, No. 21, 11/24/1941, p.81 and Time, “U.S. Art: Albright,” Vol. 40, No. 1, 7/6/1942, pp.46 and 47.

[167] Op. cit., Rich, Magazine of Art, February 1943, p.51.

[168] Op. cit., Donnell, “A Painter Am I: Ivan Albright,” in op. cit., Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright, p.204, note 91.

[169] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.33.

[170] Op. cit., Donnell, “A Painter Am I: Ivan Albright,” in op. cit., Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright, p.34. The contract amount was a carefully guarded secret, but Albright’s “rental” deal was reported by several gossip columns. Most Hollywood columnists assumed Albright would be getting between $75,000-$100,000 for his painting and frequently reported it that way.

[171] Louella O. Parsons, “Louella Parsons Hollywood,” Chicago Herald American, 8/4/1943, Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume two, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago. Her rival, Hedda Hopper was the upset here.

[172] Letter to “Peaches Dahlquist” from Albright, 10/29/1943, headed “En Route,” on stationary of the city of Los Angeles Streamliner luxury train. Ivan Albright Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Archives.

[173] Larry Lawrence, “Twin Artists from Illinois Give Hollywood Dose of Own Medecine,” The Milwaukee Journal, 3/27/1944, Green sheet sec., p.1. This is perhaps the best article on the twins in Hollywood. MGM had its perfect publicity man in Ivan Albright. He arrived in Hollywood as a witty, weathered media expert, fresh from the sensationalist reception that greeted The Door. His reputation preceded him and needed little boost from the Hollywood gossip machine. Nevertheless, both Albright and the MGM public relations people kept Dorian Gray in the news for three years.

[174] C. J. Bulliet, “Artless Comment on the Seven Arts,” Chicago Daily News, 11/6/1943, Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume two, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[175] For Hatfield: Mel Gussow, “Hurd Hatfield, 80, an Actor Known for Dorian Gray Role,” The New York Times, 12/29/1998, sec. C, p.19.

[176] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.40; letter to “Peaches,” from Albright, 4/17/1944, Ivan Albright Collection, Ryerson and Burnham Archives; letter to Helen McCabe, from Albright, 4/17/1944, Helen McCabe Letters, 1942-83, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

[177] Erskine Johnson, “Artists are Odd People,” Cincinnati Ohio Post, 3/21/1944, Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume two, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[178] Harriet and Sidney Janis, “The Painting of Ivan Albright,” Art in America, Vol. 34, No. 1, January 1946, p.43, note 1. Perhaps as evidence of the painful impact and significance of this moment, Ivan Albright never discussed this issue in any known published interviews. Indeed, this authors own viewing of the original painting by Malvin has convinced this author the Janises were accurate in their hypothesis. Henrique Medina’s painting, used in the film in place of Malvin’s, is sickeningly sweet, while Malvin’s has a slight sinister air (and looks more like Hatfield).

[179]Alfred Hitchcock, for example invited Salvador Dali (1904-89) to contribute to the dream sequence of Spellbound (1945). For discussions of the role of artwork in/and film see Angela Dalle Vacche, Cinema and Painting: How Art is Used in Film, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); Kerry Brougher (et. al.), Hall of Mirrors: Art and Film Since 1945, (Los Angeles and New York: Museum of Contemporary Art and Monacelli Press, 1996); and Chapter Three of Erika Doss, Benton, Pollock, and the Politics of Modernism: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism, (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1991), see also pp.240-252.

[180] Letter to Peaches, from Albright, 4/17/1944, Ivan Albright Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[181] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.41.

[182] Harriet Janis, “Artists in Competition: Eleven Distinguished Artists Compete in a Struggle with the Temptation of St. Anthony,” Arts and Architecture, Vol. 63, No. 4 (April, 1946), p.52. The other competing artists were: Eugene Berman (b. 1899), Lenora Carrington (b. 1917), Salvador Dali, Louis Guglielmi (1906-56), Horace Pippin (1888-1946), Abraham Rattner, Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), and Dorthea Tanning (b. 1910).

[183] Actually The Private Affairs of Bel Ami, based on the novel by Guy de Maupassant.

[184] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.42.

[185] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.42.

[186] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.42.

[187] According to the log on the back of the diagram Albright used for The Window, Albright ceased work on that project on July 31, 1945 and resumed May 11, 1946. This break surely corresponds to the time in which he was working on The Temptation of Saint Anthony; this means all dating published previously is erroneous. Diagram for The Window, Ivan Albright Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[188] Op. cit., Earle Ludgin papers. In a letter to Earle Ludgin from Albright, 1/22/1944, the painter admitted to watching Pavel Tchelitchew’s work. The painting to which he referred is probably, The Flower of Sight (1943) which appeared on the December 1943 cover of View. Tchelitchew had exhibited at the Arts Club of Chicago in 1935, 1938 and 1954. For Tchelitchew, see Pavel Tchelitchew: The Landscape of the Body, (New York: Katonah Museum of Art, New York, 1998). The exhibit was curated, with an essay by Michael Duncan. Duncan makes a brief reference to Albright, p.16.

[189] See op cit Rossen (ed.), Ivan Albright, plates 66a and 66b for Albright’s extended project in this vein.

[190] The marriage and subsequent births of children made Chicago papers and their gossip columns. For one example, see: “Artist Albright Weds Daughter of J.M. Patterson,” Chicago Sun, 8/28/1946, second section, p.21. See also: “Ivan Albright Gives His Bride Ghostly $125,000 Painting,” Milwaukee Journal, 10/9/1946, Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume two, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago. Constant coverage of the Albright’s lives in the Chicago press eventually contributed to their decision to move to Vermont.

[191] Op. cit., Donnell, “A Painter Am I: Ivan Albright,” in op. cit., Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright, p.38.

[192] Patterson's cousin, Robert McCormick ran the Chicago Tribune and Patterson was its principal stockholder. Albright painted a posthumous portrait of Patterson in 1962-64. See plate 57 and my accompanying entry in op. cit., Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright.

[193] For a succinct biography of Josephine, see, Lawrence Van Gelder, “Josephine Albright, Colorful Journalist, Dies at 82,” New York Times, 1/18/1996, sec. B, p.11.

[194] “7 Ex-WPA Artists Sign $100,000 Contract,” Chicago Daily News, 1/15/1947, Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume two, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago. Thematically, the seven panels were to depict the seven arts. The other artists included in the project and their respective subjects were: Malvin Albright (sculpture), Aaron Bohrod (architecture; 1907-92), Vincent D’Agostino (painting), William Schwartz (music; 1896-1977), and Rudolph Weisenborn (literature). Riccardo also painted a panel himself (dance). Albright’s contribution, Mephistopheles (Drama; 1947, Sid Deutsche Gallery, New York) appears in color in op. cit., Croydon, Ivan Albright, p.164, plate 71. See also for Riccardo: “Ciao, Riccardo,” Chicago, Vol. 1, No. 11, January 1955, pp.17-19.

[195] Albright Notebook, 1984.6.16, p.1.

[196] In Sue Ann Prince, ed., The Old Guard and the Avant-Guard: Modernism in Chicago, 1910-1940, (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), the authors missed an opportunity to characterize Albright’s interesting position in the Chicago art scene. Albright is mentioned only in passing and his name managed to escape even the index (he is mentioned at least on pp.19 and 91). He seemed in opposition to modernism, while often called a modernist by critics; he sought out and was accepted by conservative art groups and institutions while being scorned by critics for his extreme subject matter and approach. This strange position certainly has few parallels anywhere among his contemporaries. Most recently, Lynne Warren, et. al., Art in Chicago 1945-1995, (Chicago and London: Thames and Hudson, 1996) repeated this mistake in the catalogue to accompany an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. The recent Museum of Contemporary Art show, though rife with complicated problems of its own, included Albright but shied away from any discussion at all in its 312 pages of his impact, whether as something to react to, take from, or discard. All of this would further reinforce the perception that not only does general art history not know what to do with Albright, but Chicago, whose artistic traditions have been seen as isolated or deliberately contrary to that of New York, does not even know what to make of one of its most famous and successful artists. Ironically, the work that which was originally sought for the latter exhibition by its curators was The Picture of Dorian Gray (1943-44; Art Institute of Chicago), possibly the least understood but most persistently famous work Albright produced. As one of the few major works Albright painted outside of Illinois and one which arguably would not have been painted if Albright weren’t commissioned to do so, its look and conceit are uncharacteristic of the rest of Albright’s oeuvre and the painting itself was considered by the artist to be of lesser importance in his career. When the Art Institute of Chicago denied the loan of Dorian Gray, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1945-46; Art Institute of Chicago) was chosen for the exhibit. This painting was commissioned under similar circumstances (to be used in a Hollywood film) and is even less characteristic of Albright’s work, though it is a striking despite the fact that it represents an antecedent for much of the content and look of much Chicago art of the 1960s-1980s. Nowhere do the catalogue authors suggest this.

[197] Ellen Lanyon, interviewed by Wilma Cox, February 1976, in West Coast ‘76: The Chicago Connection, (San Francisco: Crocker Art Gallery Association and E. B. Crocker Art Gallery), 1976, p.7. I am grateful to the Illinois Historical Art Project for bringing this exhibition catalogue to my attention.

[198] For two significant denials see: Franz Schulze, Fantastic Images: Chicago Art Since 1945, (Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1972), p.9; see also, Roger Brown, “Rantings and Recollections,” p.33 in Dennis Adrian, et. al. Who Chicago?: An Exhibition of Contemporary Imagists, (Sunderland, England, 1980).

[199] John Wilde, conversation with the author, 8/12/1998.

[200] Susan Weininger, “Albright in Context,” in op. cit., Rossen (ed.), Ivan Albright, p.78. A direct and more striking comparison to Albright appears in: Art Digest, Vol. 21, No. 7, 1/1/1947, p.17. The Burkhardt piece illustrated here is “‘Universal Order,’ a conglomerate still life…which is almost as involved as those of Ivan Le Lorraine Albright won the $100 popular award in the second showing of Pepsi-Cola’s Third Annual ‘Paintings of the Year.’” Albright himself won prizes in the 1945 and 1947 Pepsi-Cola exhibitions.

[201] Caroline A. Jones, Bay Area Figurative Art 1950-1965 (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and University of California Press, 1990), p.113. See especially Nineteen Twenty-Nine (1961), p.114. Since I first saw this painting on a 1996 trip to The National Museum of American Art in Washington DC I have seen it as an homage to Albright. Its resemblance to Woman (1928) is striking. Oliveira came to know Albright in the late 1950s- early 1960s. See also, Paul J. Karlstrom interview with Nathan Oliveira, 8/9/1978, 10/6/1978 and 9/7/1980, Oral History Collection, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., pp.47-50.

[202] The most provocative essay to deal with the similar approaches of three pivotal multi-generational Chicago artists is Christopher Lyon, “‘Synthetic Realism’: Albright, Golub, Paschke,” Art Journal, Vol. 45, No. 4 Winter, 1985, pp.330-334.

[203] Jan Van der Marck, “Ivan Albright: More Than Meets the Eye,” Art in America, Vol. 65, No. 6, November/December 1977, p.94.

[204] A critique of the show appeared in New York Sun, 10/27/1945, New York Public Library Artist File, A85/E5. A less favorable review appeared in “Albright Twins - Decay, Charm, Confusion,” Art Digest, Vol. 20, 11/1/1945, p.12.

[205] My dating is based both on Albright’s notebooks and a work log which he maintained on the verso of the original diagram for The Window. Ivan Albright Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[206] Marilyn Robb, “Ivan Le Lorraine Albright Paints a Picture,” Art News, Vol. 49, No. 4, June/July/August 1950, p.46.

[207] W. W. Herscher, “Don’t Call a Spade a Spade, Says Artist of His Titles,” Boston Globe, 4/13/1942, p.4.

[208] Ivan Albright Notebooks: 1984.6.15, 17-19, 21 and 22; 1943-60. There are a few related notes in 1984.6.16 (1943-47) and 1984.6.23 (1963).

[209] W. W. Herscher, “Famed Artist Will Paint Self in Red Underwear, Eating an Egg,” Milwaukee Journal, 5/28/1943, Green Sheet section, p.1. The same article or a slightly altered version of it appeared in Ohio, Tennessee, Iowa, Virginia, Kentucky, and Illinois newspapers among others.

[210] Quoted from Daniel Schuffman’s film, The Enigma of Ivan Albright, (Creative Associates Production, c.1963), Ivan Albright Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[211] Op. cit., Robb, Art News, Vol. 49, No. 4, June/July/August 1950, p.59.

[212] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.21.

[213] Op. cit., Herscher, Milwaukee Journal, 5/28/1943, Green Sheet section, p.1. Also that Albright did not set brick until later can be seen in Notebook, 17 p.2, diagram, and in the article, “Art is a Family Affair for the Albrights,” Chicago Daily News, 5/15/1943, News-Views section, pp.2, 3.

[214] Notebook 17, p.33v.

[215] Notebook 3, p.30, c.1924.

[216] Ivan Albright, “Reflections by the Artist,” in op. cit., Ivan Albright: A Retrospective Exhibition, p.17.

[217] Op. cit., Albright, “Reflections by the Artist,” p.16.

[218] Notebook 17, pp.30v - 31.

[219] Op. cit., Robb, Art News, Vol. 49, No. 4, June/July/August 1950, p.46; Cummings interview, p.60.

[220] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.20, and diagram, verso.

[221] Op. cit., Robb, Art News, Vol. 49, No. 4, June/July/August 1950, p.58.

[222] Notebook 19, p.3v, Feb. 1952. Albright had written as early as 1943: “Detail. Have detail much like detail of the Door only closer and much more movement.” Notebook 15, p.8.

[223] Op. cit., Robb, Art News, Vol. 49, No. 4, June/July/August 1950, p.45.

[224] Op. cit., Robb, Art News, Vol. 49, No. 4, June/July/August 1950, p.45.

[225] Dorothy Bridaham, “The Paintings of Ivan Albright,” Chicago, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 1954, pp.24-25.

[226] Op. cit., Bridaham, Chicago, April 1954, p.40.

[227] Maurice Tuchman, Edward Kienholz (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1966), pp.8-9. To my knowledge, Tuchman’s view on Albright as a antecedent to installation art is rare. Albright is generally ignored by writers of the so-called avant garde. Tuchman wrote, “Many earlier artists, especially 19th century ‘history painters,’ also set up extensive and detailed reconstructions - but only as models. Meissonier anticipated Hollywood’s flamboyant productions by arranging costumed figures, stacks of straw and great heaps of cotton when real snow could not be made available. Today, some would find the models more interesting than Meissonier’s transformation into oil on canvas. Ivan Albright is a recent example of another artist also concerned with time who painted from a model he laboriously constructed. His ‘Poor Room – There is No Time, No End, No Today, No Yesterday, Only the Forever, and Forever and Forever Without End’ was painted from a life-size model. When exhibited beside the oil it projected a startling presence rivaling that of the painting.” Kienholz was invoked most recently by Susan Weininger in, “Ivan Albright in Context,” in op.cit., Rossen (Ed.) Ivan Albright, p.81. A fine recent Kienholz catalogue is, Walter Hopps et al., Kienholz: A Retrospective, (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art in association with Distributed Art Publishers, 1996).

[228] Op. cit., Kienholz quoted in Tuchman, Edward Kienholz, p.8.

[229] Albright quoted in Time, “Not Nice But Unique,” Vol. 64, No. 6, 8/9/1954, p.56.

[230] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.32.

[231] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.66.

[232] The most recent contributions to literature on Etant Donnes can be found in: Amelia Jones, Postmodernism and the En-Gendering of Marcel Duchamp, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Dalia Judovitz, Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit, (Berkeley and Los Angeles; University of California Press, 1995); Mason Klein, Toward a Phenomenology of the Self: Marcel Duchamp’s Etant Donnés, (Ph.D dissertation, City University of New York, 1994); and Charng-Jiunn Tosi Lee, The Symbolism and Self-Imaging of Marcel Duchamp, (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994).

[233] For Duchamp’s collecting of bricks, the door, and other elements see: Anne D'Harnoncourt and Walter Hopps, Etant Donnes: 1. la chute d’eau 2. le gaz d’eclairage, Reflections on a New Work by Marcel Duchamp, (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1969)pp.10-11. Also, Manual of Instruction for Marcel Duchamp Etant Donnes: 1. la chute d’eau 2. le gaz d’eclairage, (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987).

[234] This exhibition was favorably reviewed by Dore Ashton, “An Open and Shut Case,” Arts Magazine, Vol. 42, No. 6, April 1968, pp.28-30.

[235] Letter to Ludgin from Albright, 8/28/1968, Earle Ludgin Papers.

[236] Avis Berman interview with Katharine Kuh, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, p.95. Kuh told Berman, “Do you know who was absolutely crazy about his work when he came to Chicago? Dubuffet thought he was the greatest artist in America. He told me so…Most people who came, particularly Europeans, didn’t care for his work at all. But Dubuffet did. I think Albright’s a much more exciting artist than Dubuffet, much less chic.” See also Mildred Glimcher, Jean Dubuffet: Towards an Alternative Reality, (New York: Abbeville Press, 1987). Dubuffet’s visit to Albright’s studio is usually obscured by his Anticultural Positions lecture in Chicago and thus almost never mentioned in the literature. Glimcher makes a passing reference, p.26 and reproduces That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do, the painting that so impressed Dubuffet at the Art Institute, p.28.

[237] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.55.

[238] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.19.

[239] Letter to Earle Ludgin from John Richardson, 4/29/1963, Earle Ludgin Papers, Archives of American Art.

[240] Letter to Ludgin from Richardson, 4/29/1963, Earle Ludgin Papers, Archives of American Art.

[241] Letter to Albright from Ludgin, 5/17/1963, Earle Ludgin Papers, Archives of American Art.

[242] Letter to Ludgin from Richardson, 5/14/1963, Earle Ludgin Papers, Archives of American Art. John Richardson recalled his visit to Albright’s studio, “The most striking thing that sticks out in my mind about it was how relatively small the studio was… And that everything about the environment, the neighborhood in which his studio was located was like his dusty, scruffy subject matter. It was as if one was sort of fixed in the picture space and that the area around the studio had also been transformed.” Conversation with the author, 8/18/1998.

[243] Ivan Albright, Max Kahn and Constantine Pougialis, “3 Painters Review Art Critic’s Exhibit,” Chicago Daily News, 3/5/1953, Ivan Albright Scrapbook, volume two, Ryerson and Burnham Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.

[244] For an illustration of this painting see Aaron Bohrod: Master of Trompe L’Oeil, (New York: Danenberg & Roman Galleries, Inc., 11/8-11/27/1971), p.16.

[245] For Benton see: Sidney Hyman, The Lives of William Benton, (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1969); for the Albrights and Stevenson see: Walter Johnson (ed.), The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson: Volume II Washington to Springfield 1941-1948, (Boston and Toronto, Little, Brown & Company, 1973), p.548; Walter Johnson (ed. for all of the following citations), The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson: Volume III Governor of Illinois 1949-1953, (Boston and Toronto, Little, Brown & Company, 1973), p.437; The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson: Volume IV “Let’s Talk Sense to the American People,” 1952-1955, (Boston and Toronto, Little, Brown & Company, 1974), p.149; The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson: Volume VII Continuing Education and the Unfinished Business of American Society 1957-1961, (Boston and Toronto, Little, Brown & Company, 1977), p.234; The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson: Volume VIII Ambassador to the U.N. 1961-1965 (Boston and Toronto, Little, Brown & Company, 1979), p.109. For Albright’s direct relationship to these two figures, see William Benton Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. Until further Albright correspondence appears, Benton’s papers are the best source on this subject, especially letter from Albright to Benton, January 8, 1965.

[246] Notebook 18, p.13. Albright says here that he began Mary Block’s portrait on January 27, 1955.

[247] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.49.

[248] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.49.

[249] Alice Frost Lord, “New Harbor, Corea, Cundy’s Harbor and Deer Isle Intrigue Hollywood Artist,” Lewiston Journal, Magazine Section, 11/25/1944, p.A3.

[250] “Super-Realist Albright Bought by Chicago,” Art Digest, Vol. 16, 12/1/1941, p.17.

[251] Op. cit., Robb, Art News, Vol. 49, No. 4, June/July/August 1950, p.45.

[252] The reader will recall Albright’s use of local residents in Warrensville, Illinois as models.

[253] Op. cit., Kuh, The Open Eye: In Pursuit of Art, pp.8-9.

[254] Notebook, 1984.6.35, p.24, 11/24/1973.

[255] Notebook, 1984.6.25, pp.23-24, 3/7/1966.

[256] Notebook, 1984.6.29, p.49, Fall, 1972.

[257] Notebook, 1984.6.30, p.12, c.1968.

[258] Op. cit., Cummings interview, p.53. Albright admired Giacometti’s tall bronze figures until he saw Etruscan standing bronzes at an exhibition in Canada, whose similar elongated shapes led Albright to suspect Giacometti of copying.

[259] For a comparison, see James Lord, A Giacometti Portrait, (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1965, rev. ed. 1980), passim, but esp. pp.44-45;

[260] Notebook, 1984.6.41, p.21, 5/29/1978.

[261] Albright was interested in the legendary Shroud of Turin as early as 1966 when the Shroud itself is first mentioned in his notebooks. In Ivan Albright Archive, Notebook 25, pp.18 and 20, 1/2/1966, he describes attempting a drawing. After a trip to Israel in 1967, Albright became highly interested in the shroud and theories about its legend, and based at least three works upon it: In the fall of 1969 he describes a sculpture (Ivan Albright Archive, Notebook 30, p.45-47, November 1969 and to Paul Cummings, p.43-44). In 1970 he describes what may have been a painting (Notebook 27, p.11, 7/9/1970) - neither of which appear to be extant. In 1981 he executed an etching, “Head of Christ” (Notebook 36, p.10, 13, June 1981) which is in the collection of The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. He also owned a photograph of the Shroud which he gave to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1977.

[262] See for instance, Albright Archive, Notebooks 42, p.11, 5/11/1978; 39, p.56-8, 4/14/1981; 43, p.4-8, 1/28/1978 and 44, p.48, 10/28/1979.

[263] Notebook 42, 7/18/1979, p.33. The work is reproduced in color in Op. cit., Rossen (Ed.), Ivan Albright, plate 69.

[264] 1984.6.44, pp.47-48, 10/28/1979.

[265] Op. cit., Ivan Albright: The Late Self-Portraits, p.15.

[266] Notebook 1984.6.48, pp.20-21, 1982.

[267] Letter to “Peaches” from Josephine Albright after 9/14/1983. Ivan Albright Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Archives. Malvin died in Florida on September 14th.

[268] Letter to Jerry Freeman from Josephine Albright postmarked 12/14/1983. Ivan Albright Archive, Ryerson and Burnham Archives. This letter reads in part, “He was lucid until the very end and…was able to work three days before he died. He was able to be at home surrounded by family, friends, animals and things that he loved. His was a full and fulfilled life, so we have much to be thankful for.”

[269] Art Digest, “Albright, an ‘Old Master’ from Illinois,” Vol. 5, No. 1, 10/1/1930, pp.5, 6 is a good assessment of critical labels up to the 1930s.

[270] Op. cit., Pearson, Experiencing American Pictures, p.181 called him “our living old master.” See also, op. cit., Art Digest, 10/1/1930, pp.5, 6.