The Vermonter (If Life Were Life There Would Be No Death)

Inscriptions

Signed and dated, l.r.: Ivan Albright 1966-77/ Signed, dated, and inscribed, in ink, on reverse: Ivan Albright Date/1966-77/The Vermonter; started July 6 19--[effaced]/drawing/ 1 st drawing Oct 1, 1965; Attwood/ 1.50 pr hr / poses 2 hr / 10 - 12

Label

The Vermonter depicts how Ivan Albright applies his spiritual philosophy to his style of painting time and motion. This portrait of Albright’s neighbor, Harper Atwood, highlights the decay of his physical body, with sunken eyes and leathery skin. Yet even in his old age, Atwood possesses an ethereal glow.

Albright saw death as an essential part of living, a condition that gives life meaning. To Albright, the body is an impermanent material shell that serves as a vessel for our true self: the soul. All throughout the work, small concentric color rings, appearing as halos, illuminate Atwood. These circles, representing the union of body and soul, pierce through the canvas. Albright believed the soul was a force that could penetrate matter. This painting allows Albright to give a glimpse into the miraculous process of life, which transforms and transcends the body, and into what death can bring in its wake.

From the 2022 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 109, Nothing Gold Can Stay, curated by Amy Zaretsky '23, Conroy Intern

Course History

SART 31/SART 72, Painting II/III, Jennifer Caine, Winter 2020

Studio Art 77.01, Senior Seminar II, Karol Kawiaka, Spring 2023

Studio Art 77.02, Senior Seminar II, Jen Caine, Spring 2023

Exhibition History

A Space for Dialogue 109, Nothing Gold Can Stay, Amy Zarestky, Class of 2023, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 29 October - 23 December 2022

Art in Chicago: Resisting Regionalism, Transforming Modernism, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 4-April 2, 2006.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 13-Septmeber 28, 1999.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 6, 1993-March 21, 1994.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 15-December 6, 1998.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 3, 1992-April 27, 1993.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 25, 2004-April 3, 2005.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 29-December 19, 1996.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 22, 2000-March 11, 2001.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 3-October 10, 1994.

Introduction to the History of Art II, 1500 to present, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, ArtH2, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 24-March 14, 2004.

Ivan Albright: Magic Realist, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, February 20-May 11, 1997; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, June 9-September 7, 1997.

Ivan Albright: The Late Self-Protraits, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 24-June 20, 1986.

Main Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 14-October 27, 1996.

Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 26,2009-March 15, 2010.

Paint Made Flesh, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennesee, January 23-May 10, 2009.

Second Stage of Modernism: Art from 1945 to the present, William B. Jaffe, Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall, Churchill P. Lathrop, Friends and Owen Robertson Cheatham Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 6-August 16, 1987.

Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, June 12-September 5, 2021, The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, October 7, 2021-January 2, 2022, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota, February 19-May 15, 2022.

The Robert Hull Fleming Museum, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, April 11, 2016-May 19, 2019.

Publication History

Robert Silberman, "Exhibition Review: Chicago and New York, Ivan Albright," The Burlington Magazine, vol. 139, no. 1134 (September 1997), p. 656.

Michael Duncan, "The Way of All Flesh," Art in America, vol. 85, no. 7 (July 1997), pp. 87-88.

Susan R. Rossen, editor, Courtney Graham Donnell, organizer, Ivan Albright, Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1997, ill. p. 149, Catalogue number 60, detail, p. 151

Phylis Floyd, The Ivan Albright Collection, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1987, listed, p.13, no.39.

Phylis Floyd, Ivan Albright: The Late Self-Portraits, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1986, no.28, ill. p.66.

Robert Cozzolino, Art in Chicago: Resisting Regionalism, Transforming Modernism, Philadelphia, PA: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2007, ill. p. 53, cat. no. 53.

Mark W. Scala, ed., Paint Made Flesh, Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 2009, ill. p. 79, cat. no. 79.

Brian P. Kennedy and Emily Shubert Burke, Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2009 p.59, no.35.

Mark W Scala, Paint Made Flesh, Nashville, Tennessee, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Vanderbilt University Press, 2009, 124 pp., ill. p. 129.

Sarah Montross, ed. Visionary New England, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press in association with DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, 2020, p. 11, fig. 1.3.

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