Ivan Albright (1897-1983) Collection, 1888-1995

Ivan Le Lorraine Albright and his twin brother Malvin (1897-1983) were born on February 20, 1897, in North Harvey, Illinois, just south of Chicago. Ivan and Malvin's mother, Clara Wilson Albright (1862-1939), was a native Midwesterner and a University of Kansas graduate. Their father, Adam Emory Albright (1862-1957) was a real-estate investor and modestly successful artist who studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and with American painter Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a result of their father's vocation, Ivan and Malvin were exposed to the creative arts from a very early age. While still young, the twins served as models for Adam Emory's paintings of country children. From roughly 1906 to 1916, the twins were schooled in drawing and perhaps painting. In 1918 Ivan enlisted for service in World War I, serving in France as chief draftsman, assigned to make on-site medical drawings of wounds and surgical procedures. Of the approximately eight sketchbooks in which he documented the wounded, three are known to survive: one in the collection of the Department of Prints and Drawings at The Art Institute of Chicago, and two in the Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago.

After being discharged from the military, Albright worked briefly in the office of Chicago architect Dwight Heald Perkins and did color advertising work for the hotel furnisher Albert Pick and Company. In 1920 the twins enrolled at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. It was during this time that Ivan began to keep notebooks, which he used to work out theoretical, philosophical and pictorial problems of art and record his poetry, prose and comments on everyday life. Between 1923 and 1924, Albright studied for one term each at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and the National Academy of Design in New York.

Between 1926 and 1929 the brothers worked alternately from their homes in California and Warrenville, Illinois. Ivan Albright's brief participation in the Illinois Federal Arts Programs and completion of at least three works for the Public Works of Art Project and Work Projects Administration during the 1930s increased both critical and popular recognition of his work, which frequently received prizes and high honors at many prestigious exhibitions and competitions. Albright's individual style of painting and jovial personality attracted much press coverage and made him one of the most popular painters in America during the 1940s. In 1943 Albright was commissioned by Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer film studios to paint an allegorical portrait for a feature film based on Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The film, starring George Sanders, Lowell Gilmore, and Hurd Hatfield as Dorian Gray, opened in 1945.

In 1946, Ivan Albright married journalist Josephine Patterson Reeve (1913-1996) a member of the powerful Patterson newspaper family, which had connections to the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Times-Herald, and Newsday. After living in and around Chicago for sixty-six years, Albright moved with his family to the quiet of Woodstock, Vermont, in 1963. The following year, Albright was honored by a retrospective exhibition, which was organized by The Art Institute of Chicago and later traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1965. During the 1970s Albright was a visiting artist and lecturer at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and received numerous awards from institutes and associations. He remained active as an artist until his death in 1983.

This collection includes writings, correspondence, scrapbooks, photographs, glass negatives, ink and pencil drawings, and some miscellany. Series I contains Ivan Albright's notebooks (c.1920-1982) that are noteworthy for their breadth of content, being comprised of student sketches, class notes, sketches of old master paintings, diagrams for paintings, color palette notes, sketches for mature works, criticism of contemporaries and artists of the past, poetry, prose, self-analysis and daily commentary. Some sections of these notebooks appear copied in manuscript form in Series VI.

Series II consists of over two hundred pieces of manuscript and typescript poetry (c.1930-late 1940s), along with a small amount of personal correspondence (late 1930s to the early 1980s) of a personal nature. These letters are primarily to and from Albright's girlfriend, Eleanor Freeman, and date from the late 1930s to the early 1940s. Some of the typescript material in this series also appears in manuscript form in Series VI.

Series III, Photographs, includes a collection of candid black and white portrait photographs showing the artist at work in his studio in 1950, 1961 and c.1975. Additional photographs, which range from 1888 to the late 1970s, document Albright's homes, family, friends, and artwork. Photographs may also be found in Series VI.

Series IV, Scrapbooks, further documents Albright's career through press clippings and printed matter dating between 1918 and 1983 and details the public career of Ivan Albright and, to a lesser extent, other members of the Albright family.

Series V, Photographic Negatives (c.1890-c.1930), is composed primarily of glass plate negatives that document artwork and photographic studies by Adam Emory Albright. Other subjects represented in these negatives are family, residences, and the artwork of Ivan and Malvin Albright. While the large majority of the negatives in this series is in glass plate format, there are also roughly one dozen 3 x 5 in. negatives on Kodak film. Contact prints made from some of these negatives may also be found in Series III.

Series VI, Michael Croydon Papers, contains images, manuscripts, correspondence, and research papers assembled by Albright's biographer Michael Croydon in the preparation of his book, Ivan Albright (New York, 1978), and for other Albright projects. This series contains an extensive group of black and white and color photographs and transparencies, culled from a variety of sources, that document many of Albright's various residences, studios and works of art.

Series VII, Drawings, contains sketches, diagrams, and studies for approximately one dozen Albright paintings. This material dates from the 1940s to the 1970s. Finally, personal and professional objects such as color swatches and Albright's eyeglasses are assembled in Series VIII, Miscellaneous Realia, and a small group of printed materials, including a memoir by Albright's father, comprise Series IX. Series X consists of a documentary DVD about Albright.

SERIES I: NOTEBOOKS. Fifty-one notebooks arranged in approximate chronological order. Some notebooks contain entries that span more than one decade, and the dates of two notebooks are uncertain.

SERIES II: POEMS AND CORRESPONDENCE. These materials are arranged chronologically within a manuscript and a correspondence subseries.

SERIES III: PHOTOGRAPHS. Three portfolios of photographs, many oversized, arranged by dimensions, then by subject.

SERIES IV: SCRAPBOOKS. Three large scrapbooks, arranged chronologically as dated by Albright.

SERIES V: PHOTOGRAPHIC NEGATIVES. Negatives are arranged by subject and then chronologically. Identification taken from original paper sleeves has been placed in quotation marks.

SERIES VI: MICHAEL CROYDON PAPERS. Arranged into several subseries: photographs, manuscripts, interviews and correspondence, general research materials, and materials relating to the publication of Croydon's monograph, Ivan Albright.

SERIES VII: DRAWINGS. Diagrams and sketches related to major paintings, etchings and works on paper are arranged chronologically.

SERIES VIII: PERSONAL, PROFESSIONAL PAPERS AND REALIA. A small collection of paper and three-dimensional objects related to Ivan Albright's life and career, including contracts and pamphlets regarding posthumous dedications. Arranged chronologically.

SERIES IX: PRINTED. A memoir by Adam Emory Albright and a few magazine articles.

SERIES X: AUDIO/VIDEO. A DVD on Albright produced in the 1960s.

• Names
  • Albright, Ivan, 1897-1983.
  • Albright, Ivan, 1897-1983--Archives.
  • Albright, Ivan, 1897-1983--Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc.
  • Albright, Adam Emory, 1862-1957.
  • Albright, Malvin Marr, 1897-1983.
• Subject
  • Painting, American--Illinois--Chicago--20th century--Sources.
  • Painters--Illinois--Chicago--Archives.

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More than fifty paintings, sculptures, and drawings, as well as corresponding still-life objects used for paintings by Ivan Albright, are held in the permanent collection of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art. Approximately one hundred works in various formats also reside in the permanent collection of in the Department of Prints and Drawings. Formats represented there include lithographs, etchings, watercolors, gouaches, ink, graphite, crayon, and charcoal drawings, as well as two black and white photographs and one sketchbook. Additionally, the Department of American Art holds one oil painting in its permanent collection.

Portions of this collection are restricted; wherever possible, surrogate copies are provided for patron use, as noted in the series listings. The remainder of collection may be accessed by users in the Reading Room of the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at The Art Institute of Chicago. Collections maintained on-site are available for patron use without prior arrangement or appointment. Collections maintained in off-site storage will be retrieved with advance notification; please consult the Archivist for the current retrieval schedule. For further information, consult https://www.artic.edu/archival-collections/contact-usage-and-faq.

The Art Institute of Chicago is providing access to the materials in the Archives' collections solely for noncommercial educational and research purposes. The unauthorized use, including, but not limited to, publication of the materials without the prior written permission of the Art Institute is strictly prohibited. All inquiries regarding permission to publish should be submitted in writing to the Director, Art Institute of Chicago Archives. In addition to permission from the Art Institute, permission of the copyright owner (if not the Art Institute) and/or any holder of other rights (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) may also be required for reproduction, publication, distribution, and other uses. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of any item and securing any necessary permissions rests with the persons desiring to publish the item. The Art Institute makes no warranties as to the accuracy of the materials or their fitness for a particular purpose.

Ivan Albright Collection, Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archives, The Art Institute of Chicago.

The collection was donated by numerous sources, including friends and relatives of Albright, and one local archive. The initial acquisition, which consisted of notebooks, scrapbooks and photographs, was a gift from the artist's widow, Josephine Patterson Albright (1913-1996), in 1984. Marilyn Rogers Lowery, whose mother modeled for one of Albright's most celebrated works Into the World There Came A Soul Named Ida (1929-30), donated two handwritten poems, also in 1984. The next addition to the Albright collection was received in 1988, when two hundred ninety-five typescript poems dating from the 1930s were transferred from the Lester Bridaham papers, 1912-1986, at the Chicago office of the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art. Approximately one thousand glass negatives were acquired in 1995 as a gift of the estate of Cornelia Fairbanks Albright, widow of Malvin Albright. In 1996, Albright's biographer and friend, Michael Croydon, donated manuscripts and photographs he had acquired from the artist, as well as research material he had amassed during the course of work for the book Ivan Albright and during the organization of Albright print exhibitions. Ephemeral material was donated by the Albright estate in 1997. Eleanor Freeman, friend of the Albright family during the 1930s to the 1950s, presented a gift of Ivan Albright's poetry and correspondence to the archive in 1997 and additional correspondence in 1998. A 1963 Albright biographical film was donated by its creator, Daniel Schuffman, in 1997. Mrs.William G. Welch donated printed materials c.2004. Also includes a contract with MGM which was pruchased by the Ryerson and Burnham Library in May 2010.

This collection was originally processed by Robert Cozzolino, of the Ryerson and Burnham Archives. This finding aid was extensively revised and expanded by Nathaniel Parks in 2003, Ashley Booth in 2012 and Aaron Rutt in 2014.

Some materials currently in the Ryerson and Burnham's Ivan Albright Collection were obtained via transfer from other Art Institute departments and collecting institutions rather than from the original owners. Diagrams and materials relevant to Albright's working method, which were originally part of a 1984 gift of Josephine Patterson Albright, were transferred to the Ryerson and Burnham Archives from the Art Institute's Department of Prints and Drawings in 1997. Albright's color swatches were transferred from the Art Institute's Department of Twentieth Century Painting and Sculpture, also in 1997. Finally, 295 typescript poems dating from the 1930s were transferred to the Ryerson and Burnham Archives in 1998 from the Lester Bridaham papers, 1912-1986, held by the Chicago office of the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.

Restricted items in Series I, IV, V, VII, VIII and X may have microfilm, photocopy, photo or DVD surrogates available, as noted in the series inventories. Some items may also have existing AIC copy negatives, as indicated in the inventory listings. Copies of these images may be ordered through the Ryerson and Burnham Archives.