That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door)
Date:
1931–41
Artist:
Ivan Albright (American, 1897–1983)
About this artwork
Replete with powerful imagery and bearing a long, philosophical title, That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door) is an evocative meditation on the choices and regrets in life. Ivan Albright considered The Door to be his most important picture, and he worked for ten years to achieve its mesmerizing effect. He spent weeks collecting props for the painting: a marred Victorian door found in a junkyard, a faded wax funeral wreath, and a tombstone for the doorsill. Once he arranged these objects, Albright completed an elaborate charcoal underdrawing that he then covered with the intricate and obsessively painted detail that characterizes most of his work. He would often finish no more than a quarter of a square inch a day. A wrinkled, aging woman’s hand rests on the carved doorway, a faded blue handkerchief clenched between the fingers. The poignant placement of the hand, near but not touching the doorknob, only underscores the sense of remorse and mourning implied by the painting. With its profound themes of mortality and the passage of time, The Door is a modern memento mori that encourages a consideration of the brevity of human existence.
That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door)
Place
United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Manny Farber, “Artists for Victory: Metropolitan Museum of Art Opens Great Exhibition for American Artists,” Magazine of Art 35, 8 (Dec. 1942): 276–77 (ill.).
A. Hyatt Mayor, “The Artists for Victory Exhibition,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (Dec. 1942): 142 (ill.), as That Which I Should Have Done, I Did Not Do.
Edward Alden Jewell, “‘Artists for Victory’: Metropolitan Opens Tomorrow the Huge American Survey,” The New York Times, Dec. 6, 1942, 259, as That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do.
“Record Art Show Has $52,000 Prizes: Artists for Victory Display at Metropolitan Museum Totals 918 Exhibits,” The New York Times, Dec. 7, 1942, 30 (ill.), as That Which I Should Have Done, I Did Not Do.
“Metropolitan Opens Artists for Victory Exhibition,” New York Herald Tribune, Dec. 8, 1942, as That Which I Should Have Done, I Did Not Do.
Edward Alden Jewell, “Artists for Victory: Afterthoughts on the Huge Nation-Wide Survey at the Metropolitan Museum,” The New York Times, Dec. 20, 1942, 150, as That Which I Should Have Done, I Did Not Do.
Alfred M. Frankfurter, “The Artists for Victory Exhibition: The Paintings,” Art News 41, 16 (Jan. 1-14, 1943): 9 (ill.), 11, as That Which I Should Have Done, I Did Not Do.
Daniel Catton Rich, “Ivan Le Lorraine Albright: Our Own Jeremiah,” Magazine of Art 36, 2 (Feb. 1943), 49–51 (ill.).
Associated American Artists, The Alrbight Twins: First Joint Chicago Exhibition, exh. cat. (Chicago: Associated American Artists, 1946), cat. 2.
Margaret S. Marble [Margaret Sharp], The Lady Forgot (Harper, 1947), 208–209.
Frederick A. Sweet, Ivan Albright: A Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1964), 34, 37, cat. 18 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Works by Ivan L. Albright from the Collection, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1978), cat. 12 (ill.).
Courtney Graham Donnell, et al., , exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1997), cat. 24.
Judith A. Barter, et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2009), 204-7, cat. 91 (ill.).
Sarah Kelly Oehler, ed., Ivan Albright Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2019), https://www.artic.edu/digitalalbright, cat. 13 (ill.).
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, 1938 International Exhibition of Paintings, Oct. 13–Dec. 4, 1938, cat. 2.
Washington, DC, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Seventeenth Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings, Mar. 23–May 4, 1941, p. 43, cat. 48.
Art Institute of Chicago, Fifty–Second Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture, Oct. 30, 1941–Jan. 4, 1942, cat. 2, pl. 7.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Artists for Victory: An Exhibition of Contemporary American Art, Dec. 7, 1942–Feb. 22, 1943, no cat. no., as That Which I Should Have Done, I Did Not Do.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, American Realists and Magic Realists, Feb. 10–Mar. 21, 1943, p. 63, cat. 34; Buffalo, Albright Gallery, Apr. 5–May 5; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, July 1–30; San Francisco Museum of Art, Aug. 23–Sept. 19; Art Gallery of Toronto, Nov. 12–Dec. 19; Cleveland Museum of Art, Jan. 1–29, 1944.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Art in Progress, May 24–Oct. 8, 1944, 109, 218 (ill.).
New York, Associated American Artists Galleries, The Albright Twins, Oct. 22–Nov. 10, 1945, cat. 1.
Chicago, Associated American Artists Galleries, The Albright Twins First Joint Chicago Exhibition, Mar. 29–Apr. 17, 1946, cat. 2.
London, Tate Gallery, American Painting, June 1–July 31, 1946, p. 9, cat. 1.
Paris, Musée National d’art Moderne, 12 peintres et sculpteurs: Américains contemporains, Apr–June 1953, cat. 3.
City Art Museum of St. Louis, 200 Years of American Painting, Apr. 1–May 31, 1964, p. 44 (ill.).
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Between the Fairs: 25 Years of American Art, 1939–1964, June 24–Sept. 23, 1964, pp. 16, 85 (ill).
Art Institute of Chicago, Ivan Albright Retrospective Exhibition, Oct. 30–Dec. 27, 1964, cat. 18; New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Feb. 3–Mar. 21, 1965.
Art Institute of Chicago, Art in Illinois: In Honor of the Illinois Sesquicentennial, June 15–Sept. 8, 1968 (no cat.).
Art Institute of Chicago, 100 Artists/100 Years: Alumni of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Nov. 23, 1979–Jan. 20, 1980, pp. 11, 62, cat. 4 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Ivan Albright, Feb. 20–May 11, 1997, cat. 24; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ivan Albright: Magic Realist, June 10–Sept. 7, 1997.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
