Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida

1929–30

Ivan Albright (American, 1897–1983)

Holding a mirror, powdering her chest, and surrounded with accoutrements of fashion and beauty, the figure portrayed here does not necessarily inspire thoughts of youth and vibrancy. Rather, as one critic put it when this painting was first exhibited, he saw a “woman with flesh the color of a corpse drowned six weeks.” Ida Rogers herself was 19 years old at the time she posed for the artist. With his hyperbolic version of realism, Ivan Albright laboriously transformed his sitter into a vision of his own making. The painting is less a portrait than a meticulous musing on the passage of time and the relationship—both powerful and fragile—between mind and body.

Status: On View, Gallery 262
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Ivan Albright
Title: Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida
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.: 1929–1930
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower right: Ivan Le Lorraine Albright
Dimensions: 142.9 × 119.2 cm (56 1/4 × 47 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Ivan Albright
Reference Number: 1977.34
Copyright: © The Art Institute of Chicago.

“Albright’s Ida Wins Chicago Gold Medal,” The Art Digest, Dec. 15, 1931, 6, ill.
“Albright’s Aging ‘Ida’ Repeats Her 1931 Chicago Triumph in Springfield,” The Art Digest, Feb. 1, 1937, 12, ill.
“Lavender and Old Bottles,” Time, Nov. 24, 1941, 18.
Daniel Catton Rich, “Ivan Le Lorraine Albright Our Own Jeremiah,” Magazine of Art, Feb. 1943, 49–51.
Frederick c. Othman, “Black Eye Artist Goes to Work on Dorian Gray Film,” Hollywood (UP), Nov. 30, 1943.
C.J. Bulliet, “Albright’s ‘Dorian Gray’ Hollywoodian in its Horror,” Chicago Daily News, July 28, 1945.
Jo Gibbs, “The Albright Twins—Decay, Charm, Confusion,” The Art Digest, Nov. 1, 1945, 12, ill.
“A Look at the Albrights,” Newsweek, Nov. 5, 1945, ill.
Harriet and Sidney Janis, “The Painting of Ivan Albright,” Art in America, Jan. 1946, 43–49.
“Texture, The Neglected Element,” Design, March 1951, 24.
John I.H. Baur, “American Art After 25 Years: A Richer Diversity Than Ever Before,” The Art Digest, Nov. 1, 1951, 15–18, ill. p. 17.
Dorothy Bridaham, “The Paintings of Ivan Albright,” Chicago, April 1954, 20–41, ill. p. 24.
“12 Amerikanska Malere och skulporer pa Liljevalchs,” Konstrevy, 30, 1 (1954), 17, ill.
John I.H. Baur, New Art in America: 50 Painters of the 20th Century (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1957), 198–202, ill. p. 198.
“More than a Portrait,” Time, July 22, 1957, 56.
WFMT Fine Arts Guide, Chicago, November, 1960, 67.
Edith Weigle, “The Genius of Ivan Albright, Chicago Tribune Magazine, Jan. 27, 1963.
Edward Barry, “Big Albright Exhibit—Tribute to a Chicagoan,” Chicago Tribune, Oct. 25, 1964, 111, ill.
“Growth and Death”, Newsweek, Nov. 23, 1964, 105.
Robert Coates, “The Art Galleries: Chaos,” The New Yorker, Feb. 13, 1965, 128–130.
John Canaday, “Meet Ivan Albright,” New York Times, Nov. 7, 1965.
Margarita Walker Dulac, “Ivan Albright: Mystic Realist,” American Artists, Jan. 1966, 32–76, ill. p. 34.
El Mundo de los Museos, The Art Institute of Chicago, Editorial Codex, S.A. Madrid Spain, 1967, ill. p. 32.
Jan. van der Marck, “Ivan Albright: More Than Meets the Eye,” Art in America, Nov./Dec. 1977, 93–98.
Michael Croydon, Ivan Albright (New York: Abbeville Press, 1978), 49–50, 199, 244, plates 6–8.
Alan G. Artner, “At 81, Ivan Albright Enjoy his Gift of Second Sight,” Chicago Tribune, Arts and fun Section, Oct. 22, 1978.
Paul Cummings, Artists in Their Own Words (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979), 48–63.
Fritz Neugass, “Ivan Le Lorrain Albright,” Das Kunstwerk, 1980, ill.
“Ivan Albright,” The New Renaissance, 4, 3, 14 (Spring 1981), 31–40, ill. p. 34.
Mitchell Douglas Kahan, Subjective Currents in American Painting of the 1930s, Ph.D. Dissertation, City University of New York, 1983, ill. no. 34, 100–101, 106.
Mahonri Sharp Young, “Other Regionalisms in American Painting,” Apollo, Nov. 1984, 327–334, ill. p. 334.
Master Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991).
Helen O’Connor, A Mirror of the Soul: the Evolution of Consciousness as Expressed in Art, 1992.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth–Century Painting and Sculpture, selected by James N. Wood and Teri J. Edelstein (Art Institute of Chicago, 1996), 66, ill.
Courtney Graham Donnell, et al., , exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1997), cat. 17.
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), 200–3, cat. 90 (ill.).
Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2017) p. 120.
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. 7 (ill.).
Hannah Edgar, “20 Artworks Not to Miss at the Art Institute of Chicago”, ARTnews, Jan. 22, 2024, https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/artists/what-to-see-art-institute-of-chicago-1234691091/narcissa-niblack-thorne-thorne-miniature-rooms-c-1937-40-gallery-11/.

Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings by George and Martin Baer and Ivan Le Lorraine Albright, July 23–Oct. 11, 1931, no. cat.
Chicago, Increase Robinson Galleries, Annual Exhibition of the Chicago Society of Artists, 1931, received Gold Medal.
Art Institute of Chicago, 37th Annual Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, Jan. 12–Mar. 5, 1933, cat. no. 6 as The Lord in His Heaven Above and I in My Room Below.
Chicago Art Fair, Grant Park, July 1933.
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, 1933.
White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., Old White Art Gallery at the Greenbrier Hotel, Ivan Le Lorraine Albright, Jul–Aug, 1935, cat. no. 2.
Chicago, Walden Book Shop Gallery, 1935.
Springfield Art League, Springfield Museum, Mass. Jan–Feb. 1937.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1937 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, Nov. 20–Dec. 12, 1937, cat. no. 61.
San Francisco, Ca., Golden Gate International Exposition, Department of Fine Arts, Contemporary Art,
[Feb. 19–Oct. 29], 1939, cat. United States 5.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, American Realists and Magic Realists, 1943, cat. no. 29.
New York, Associated American Artists Galleries, First Joint Exhibition: The Albright Twins, Oct. 22–Nov. 10, 1945, cat. no. 2.
Colorado Springs, Colo., Fine Arts Center, New Accessions – U.S.A., July 12–Sept. 5, 1948, cat. no. 11, ill.
New York, Museum of Modern Art (organizer), exhibited in Paris, Musée National d’art Moderne, under 12 Peintres et sculpteurs Américains contemporains, Apr–Jun, 1953, as Venue au monde d’une creature du nom d’Ida, cat. 1; Kunsthaus Zürich, under Amerikanische Maler und Bildhauer der gegenwart, July 25–Aug. 30, 1953, p. 15, cat. 1, as Eine Seele kam zur Welt, Ida; Helsinki, Taidehalli, under Kaksitoista Nykyaikaista Amerikkalaista maalaria ja Kuvanveistäjää, Jan. 8–24, 1954, p. 10, cat. 1, as Sielu, Idaksi nimitetty, astui maa.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The 151st Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Jan. 22–Feb. 26, 1956, cat. no. 15.
Lake Forest College, Ill., A Century of American Painting, June 9–16, 1957.
Art Institute of Chicago, Ivan Albright Retrospective Exhibition, Oct. 30–Dec. 27, 1964; New York, the Whitney Museum, Feb. 3–Mar. 21, 1965.
Art Institute of Chicago, Works from the Collection by Ivan Albright, Oct. 21–Dec. 10, 1978, cat.
Chicago, Richard L. Feigen & Co., Ivan Albright, Sept. 9–Oct. 15, 1988.
Kunst–und Austellungshalle der Bundesrepublic Deutschland, June 18–Sept. 20, 1992.
Art Institute of Chicago, Ivan Albright, Feb. 20–May 11, 1997, cat. 17; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ivan Albright: Magic Realist, June 10–Sept. 7, 1997.
Kunsthalle de Hypo–Kulturstiftung, Munich, Germany, Realism in the Twentieth Century, June 1–Sept. 2, 2001.
Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, IL, Chicago Modern:, 1893 – 1945: Pursuit of the New, 17 July 2004 – 31 Oct. 2004.
Art Institute of Chicago, Flesh: Ivan Albright at the Art Institute of Chicago, May 4–Aug. 5, 2018, no cat.

Ivan Albright (1897–1983), from 1930 to 1947; partially exchanged for Woman (1947.33; now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 228.1948) and sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1947 [as 1947.519]; deaccessioned by exchange (along with Heavy the Oar to Him Who Is Tired, Heavy the Coat, Heavy the Sea [then 1949.961, now 1959.12] and Oh God, Herrings, Buoys, the Glittering Sea [then 1941.828, now 1977.32]) to Ivan Albright for That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door) (1955.645), 1959 [Art Institute of Chicago, Board of Trustees Minutes, April 6, 1959]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1977.

Educator Resource Packet: Into the World There Came A Soul Called Ida by Ivan Albright

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