Product Description

This is the first paperback edition of the centennial monograph about a unique American artist who depicted the vulnerability of human life and the inevitable decay in all things in such masterworks as Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida and the horrifying portrait created for Hollywood's Picture of Dorian Gray.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #353034 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From Booklist
It's a commonplace to say that artists are unique, but Ivan Albright (1897^-1983) is truly in a class by himself. An influential and successful Chicago artist, he possessed a "singular vision," according to Courtney Graham Donnell, a contributor to this well produced volume. A master technician, Albright created meticulously detailed paintings, sculpted, carved his own frames, and devised a number of innovative techniques to explore his fascination with perception. A positive, energetic, and fun-loving man, he nonetheless painted dark and troubling portraits that focus, unnervingly, on decay, aging, and death. Albright wrote, "The body is our tomb," and admitted that he liked to make viewers uncomfortable by challenging their notions of art, beauty, and life. An artist with the unusual distinction of having one of his paintings star in a film, his Portrait of Dorian Gray (1943), Albright should be better known, and, with this outstanding monograph accompanying the striking exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he will be. Donna Seaman

Customer Reviews

About This Edition
This is the Art Institute of Chicago edition, distributed by Hudson Hills Press. Large format trade paperback on glossy paper: 93 illustrations of Albright's work; about 50 other illustrations: Albright, his family, biographical background, zeitgeist, Electric Light and Power covers, a few works in progress, work by other artists to provide context. Foreword, 2 essays totally over 80 pp, Chronology, Exhibition History, The Ivan Albright Archive, 3 p Bibliography, Notes.