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 Dooris a modern memento mori that encourages a consideration of the brevity of human existence.
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.).
Daniel Catton Rich, “Ivan Le Lorraine Albright: Our Own Jeremiah,” Magazine of Art 36, 2 (Feb. 1943), 49–51 (ill.).
Margaret S. Marble [Margaret Sharp], The Lady Forgot (Harper, 1947), 208–209.
Judith A. Barter et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2009), cat. 91.
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, Museum of Modern Art, American Realists and Magic Realists, Feb 10–Mar 21, 1943, p. 63, cat. 34; traveled to Buffalo, Albright Gallery, Apr 5–May 5; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Jul 1–30; San Francisco Museum of Art, Aug 23–Sep 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, pp. 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, Mar 29–Apr 17, 1946, cat. 2.
London, Tate Gallery, American Painting, Jun 1–Jul 31, 1946, p. 9, cat. 1.
Paris, Musée National d’art Moderne, 12 peintres et sculpteurs: Américains contemporains, Apr–Jun 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, Jun 24–Sep 23, 1964, pp. 16, 85 (ill).
Art Institute of Chicago, Ivan Albright, Oct 30–Dec 27, 1964, pp. 34, 37, cat. 18 (ill.); traveled to 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, Jun 15–Sep 8, 1968 (no cat.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Works by Ivan L. Albright from the Collection, Oct 21–Dec 10, 1978, cat. 12 (ill.).
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; traveled to New York, Metropilitan Museum of Art, Jun 10–Sep 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 .
