Albert Irvin BRITISH, 1922-2015
Albert Irvin's energetic paintings are among the most celebrated works of British Abstract Expressionism. Irvin was admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1998; in 2013 he was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his contributions to British art. The artist attended the Northampton School of Art, but his education was interrupted by World War II and he joined the Royal Air Force as a navigator in 1941. He returned to painting after the war and graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London in 1950. Irvinâs early works depicted abstracted landscapes and still lifes. Influenced by the Abstract Expressionist style taking hold in New York, however, he soon developed a more gestural style. In the 1970s he began using a large squeegee to swipe acrylic paint across his canvases and create wide color bars, and he took up screen printing in the 1980s, a medium he would continue to work in for the rest of his life.
