BORN: February 20, 1897 N. Harvey, ILiii

DIED: September 14, 1983 Ft. Lauderdale, FL

MARRIED: December 1954, Cornelia Fairbanks Poole Ericourt of Indianapolis, in Old Saybrook, Connecticut

TRAINING

Adam Emory Albright, his father

1911-1915 Graduated, New Trier High School, Winnetka, ILiv

c.1917 University of Illinoisv

1919 Ecole des Beaux Arts, Nantesvi

1919, 1920-1922, 1922-1923 Graduated, sculpture department, Art Institute of Chicago, Albin Polášek

1923 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Charles Graflyvii

1920s New York, Elie Nadelmanviii

1924 Beaux Arts Institute of Design, New York

New York, Edward McCartan

ART RELATED EMPLOYMENT

1920s Several civic commissions for towns, cities in the United Statesix

1936 Works Progress Administrationx

1943 Commissioned with brother Ivan to paint Portrait of Dorian Gray for M. G. M. Studios, Hollywoodxi

1948 Mural La Farfalla, Riccardo’s Restaurant, Chicago (removed late 1960s)xii

TEACHING

RESIDENCES

1898-1910 Edison Park (Chicago)

1910-1924 Hubbard Woods (Winnetka), Illinois

1924-1954 Warrenville, Illinoisxiii

1954-1983 Maintained residences in Warrenville; Chicago; Corea, Maine; Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

TRAVEL

1902-1906 Annisquam, Massachusetts (summers)

1909 Noank, Connecticut (summer)

1910 Brown County, Indiana (summer)

1911 Springfield, Missouri (summer)

1914 Birmingham, Pennsylvania (summer)

1915 Woodward, Centre County, Pennsylvania (summer)

1916 Tionesta, Pennsylvania (summer)

1917-1918 Caracas, Venezuela (winter)

1923-1924 Philadelphiaxiv

1924 New York Cityxv

1924 Laguna Beach and La Jolla, Californiaxvi

1925 Camelback, Arizona; Old Laguna, Santa Fe and Taos New Mexicoxvii

1925 Kentucky; Tennessee; Alabamaxviii

1926 Oceanside, California

1926 New York Cityxix

1927 San Diego

1929 Laguna Beach

1940s-1950s Maine

c.1948 Oregon

Florida; Kansas; Michigan; New York; Texas; Wisconsin

MEMBERSHIPS/OFFICES

Chicago Society of Artists (director 1934-1935)

International Institute of Arts and Lettersxx

Laguna Beach Art Associationxxi

National Sculpture Society

Royal Society of Arts

HONORS

1922 Chicago Daily News Fountain Competition Prize

1929 Robert Rice Jenkins Prize, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago & Vicinityxxii

1931 Honorable Mention, Chicago Society of Artists annual

1934 W. A. Clarke Award, Chicago Society of Artists annual

1934 Gold Medal, Chicago Society of Artists annualxxiii

1935 William R. French Memorial Gold Medal, Art Institute of Chicago, American Annualxxiv

1942 Altman Prize, National Academy of Designxxv

1943 Mr. & Mrs. Jule F. Brower Prize, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago & Vicinity xxvi

1945 Silver Medal, Corcoran Gallery of Art biennialxxvii

1945 Second Clark Prize, Corcoran Gallery of Art biennial

1946 Renaissance Club Prize, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago & Vicinity

1948 Associate National Academician

1948 Edwin Palmer Memorial Prize, National Academy of Design

1952 National Academicianxxviii

1962 Edwin Palmer Memorial Prize, National Academy of Design

1962 Realism in Painting Prize, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago & Vicinity xxix

1965 Dana Medal, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts watercolor annualxxx

JURIES SERVED

Art Institute of Chicago, American Annual 1930

Illinois Academy of Fine Arts annual 1929

John Reed Club of Chicago, Second Annual Proletarian Art Exhibit, 1931xxxi

Wisconsin Salon of Art 1943

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

All-Illinois Society of Fine Art annual 1927

American Federation of Arts, Traveling Exhibition of Chicago Artists 1931-1932

American Watercolor Society annual 1943

Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings By Contemporary Chicago Artists 1936

Art Institute of Chicago, Society For Contemporary American Art 1941

Arts Center Gallery, Chicago, inaugural exhibit 1932xxxii

Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn Museum annual watercolors 1931

California Palace of the Legion of Honor 1929

Carnegie Institute annual 1930, 1939, 1940, 1943-1950

Chicago Galleries Association semi-annual 1930,xxxiiixxxiv 1930 (Dec.)

Chicago Galleries Association, March small group show 1932xxxv

Chicago No-Jury Society of Artists annual 1934

Chicago Society of Artists annual 1931, 1934

Cleveland Museum of Art

Corcoran Gallery of Art biennial 1932, 1935, 1937, 1939, 1941, 1943, 1945, 1947, 1949, 1951, 1953

Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Texas, Famous Families in American Art, 1960xxxvi

de Young Memorial Museum, Meet the Artist: An Exhibition of Self-Portraits By Living American Artists 1943

Denver Art Museum

Detroit Institute of Arts

Increase Robinson Studio Gallery, Chicago 1930

Increase Robinson Studio Gallery, Chicago, Water Colors, Drawings And Prints By Chicago Artists 1931

Increase Robinson Studio Gallery, Chicago, Invitational 1931xxxvii

Increase Robinson Studio Gallery, Chicago, Chicago Artists Represented in Art of Today - Chicago, 1933, 1933

Library of Congress, National Exhibition of Prints Made During The Current Year 1948

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Biennial Exhibition of Drawings by American Artists 1945

Magnificent Mile Art Show, Chicago 1955

Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Painting 1950

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Artists for Victory 1942

Milwaukee Art Museum

Museum of Modern Art, Realists and Magic Realists 1943xxxviii

National Academy of Design annual 1927-1929,xxxix 1932, 1934-1936, 1940, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1947-1950

National Sculpture Society 1929xl

Pemaquid Group of Artists, Pemaquid Art Gallery Maine 1939xli

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts annual 1927-1930,xlii 1931, 1933, 1935, 1936, 1938, 1940, 1942-1945, 1948, 1949

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Annual Watercolors 1943

Philadelphia Art Alliance, Sculpture in the Open Air, at Rittenhouse square 1928

Philadelphia Museum of Art

San Diego Museum of Art

San Francisco Fine Arts Museum

St. Louis Art Museum

University of Illinois, Contemporary American Painting 1950

Walley Findlay Galleries, Chicago, Eleanor Jewett Critic’s Choice 1950

Whitney Museum of American Art annual 1936, 1938, 1940, 1945, 1948

ONE, TWO OR THREE MAN EXHIBITIONS

1932 (Mar.) Chicago Galleries Association

1938 Winnetka Community House, with his father and brotherxliii

1942 Sheldon Swope Gallery, Terre Haute

1942 Findlay Galleries, Chicago with brother Ivanxliv

1945 Associated American Artists, New York with Ivanxlv

1946 Associated American Artists, Chicago with Ivan

1950 Riccardo’s Studio Restaurant, with his father and brotherxlvi

1987 Sonnenschein Gallery, Durand Art Institute, Father & Sons: The Albrightsxlvii

PERMANENT COLLECTIONS

The Art Institute of Chicago (long-term loan)

Corcoran Gallery of Art

National Academy of Design, New York

San Diego Museum of Art (deacessioned)xlviii

Warrenville Public Library

INTERESTING NOTES

In 1932 he said, “I am a sculptor... When I get tired of sculpture and need a rest I paint”xlix This despite his continual exhibitions of paintings. He struggled between the two mediums to find a form which was most individual to him and less affiliated with his twin brother Ivan. In 1951 he was represented by Associated American Artists gallery and Riccardo’s Studio Restaurant gallery.l

Malvin and his twin brother Ivan were taught to draw by their father, Adam Emory, before embarking on their academic training and professional careers. The three maintained a close relationship and were occaisionally profiled together by the press. Though less successful as a painter and sculptor and certainly less radical in his approach than Ivan, Malvin worked alongside his brother on similar projects through 1947. The twins often studied with the same teachers and accompanied one another on several working trips, culminating in a Hollywood commission in 1943. Later, Malvin and Ivan are reported working from models who are related to one another, both in Warrenville and in California. Malvin, however, lived in the public shadow of his brother. With the exception of a few notes before 1926 or so, Malvin generally appears as a curious accoutrement to discussions of Ivan's peculiar work. On several occaisions, newspaper reporters got Malvin's name wrong, calling him Marvin,li mistaking him for Ivan, or creating other name variations until he changed his name to Zsissly. Nonetheless, Malvin enjoyed a moderately successful career in Chicago and seems to have been respected in conservative National circles. After 1945 he frequently painted landscape outdoors in Maine and Oregon. He seems to have stopped exhibiting altogether around 1965. Due to health problems, he painted very little during the last decade of his life.

iMalvin initially adopted the pseudonym Zissly in 1932 to distance himself from his brother Ivan in his painting career. As such, Ivan, who nearly always appeared first in alphabetized exhibition catalogues would open and Zissly would close listings. When it became clear that Zissly wouldn’t always be last, the “s” was added almost immediately: Malvin became Zsissly. He continued to exhibit sculpture under his birth name.

iiMalvin was named after Adam's Munich teacher, Carl von Marr. For more information on the artist see: Kenan Heise, “Malvin M. Albright, Chicago Artist,” Chicago Tribune, 9/16/1983, Sec. 2, p.10.

iiiMalvin and his identical twin, Ivan were born on the same day and died only two months apart.

iv“Commencement Days: New Trier High School,” Chicago Tribune, 6/19/1915, p.14.

vA coin toss determined whether the twins would take up chemistry or architecture. Architecture came up as the

winner. Jack Weinberg, interview with Ivan Albright, 1969, Ivan Albright [archival] Collection, Art Institute of Chicago.

viThe extent to which Malvin and his brother Ivan actually “studied” at this institution is unclear. It emerged from Ivan as a story at least as early as 1931: Sterling North “The Man Who Drew Wounds: Portrait of A Painter,” Chicago Daily News, 8/5/1931, p.12. Ivan deflated the idea that there was much “studying” going on between Malvin, himself and the Ecole in his 1972 interview with Paul Cummings for the Archives of American Art.

viiAdam Emory Albright encouraged Malvin to study with Grafly, who had been a fellow student of Adam’s during their own Pennsylvania Academy days. According to Malvin, Grafly and Adam Albright remained close friends. A bust of Adam Emory Albright done by Grafly in 1905 remained in the family for several decades. See Dorothy Grafly Drummond, The Sculptor’s Clay: Charles Grafly (1862-1929), (Wichita: Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, 1996), p.115.

viiiR. A. Lennon, “Brothers Establish Studio in a Church,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 5/26/1925, p.4.

ixMalvin Albright completed several fountains and other sculptural projects for supposed commissions during the 1920s, but documentation on placement and fate is sketchy. A series of glass negatives in the Ivan Albright Collection of the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, The Art Institute of Chicago, visually documents these commissions.

xAfter ten weeks he gave up the position to his brother Ivan.

xiMalvin was assigned to paint the unblemished portrait of Dorian Gray. Malvin’s painting, completed by February of 1944, was ultimately replaced and not used (or credited) in the film. Due to this commission, Malvin received a great deal of attention from the national press between 1943 and 1946; also contributing to this high visibility was his participation in an exhibition circulated by the Museum of Modern Art and joint exhibitions with his brother Ivan in New York and Chicago. In all the interviews Ivan obliged about his Hollywood experience, he never commented on this incident – nor was he asked – but one can certainly imagine the impact it had on Malvin. The closest anyone has come to an explanation appears in the article by Harriet and Sidney Janis, "The Painting of Ivan Albright," Art in America 34, 1 (January 1946), pp. 43-49. This is also one of the few articles that comments intelligently on the Albrights as twin artists.

xii“7 Ex-WPA Artists Sign $100,000 Contract,” Chicago Daily News, 1/15/1947.

xiiiBoth Malvin and his brother Ivan lived at home until Ivan moved away at age forty-nine upon his marriage.

xiv“Ivan L. Albright,” in “News of the Art World,” supplement, Chicago Evening Post, 1/29/1924.

xvOp. cit., Chicago Evening Post, 1/29/1924.

xvi“Of Timely Interest,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 11/18/1924, p.8. He and Ivan went to visit their parents at Laguna stopping on the way in Santa Fe, Taos and the Grand Canyon.

xviiOp. cit., R. A. Lennon, The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 5/26/1925, p.4. The Albright family has a painting signed 1925 and inscribed “Phoenix, Arizona.”

xviii“To Motor Thru South,” The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 10/13/1925, p.16. He traveled with his parents and brother.

xixHis The First Mate, a sculpture modeled in New York, was illustrated in The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 9/14/1926, p.11.

xxGlenn B. Opitz, editor, Dictionary of American Sculptors: 18th Century to the Present, (Poughkeepsie, NY: Apollo, 1984).

xxiWilliam Young, editor, A Dictionary of American Artists, Sculptors and Engravers, (Cambridge, MA: William Young and Co., 1968).

xxii“Fragment That Afforded an Entire Dispute,” Art Digest, Vol. 3, 5/1/1929, p.15. The prize was awarded his sculpture Fragment, illustrated in the article. Eleanor Jewett, “Chicago Artists’ Show Has Charm, Variety; Prizes Are Awarded,” Chicago Tribune, 2/7/1929, p.29.

xxiiiArt Digest, Vol. 9, 12/15/1934, p.7. The award was given his painting White Shutters. The show was reviewed in C. J. Bulliet, “Around the Galleries: Let It Pass for an Annual,” Chicago Daily News, 12/8/1934, Art and Artists, p.6.

xxivThe prize was awarded his Victoria. Eleanor Jewett, ““New Art Show Reveals Rich Talent in U. S.,” Chicago Tribune, 10/27/1935, p.F6.

xxvThe prize was awarded his Corea Maine.

xxviThe prize was awarded his Lobsterman’s Wharf, illustrated in: “Chicago’s 47th Annual: A Region in Cross-Section,” Art News, Vol. 42, 3/15/1943, p.27.

xxviiThe prize was awarded his Deer Island, Maine.

xxviiiArt Digest, Vol. 26, 3/15/1952, p.10.

xxixThe prize was awarded his Unfinished. He is shown working on the painting, before an elaborate still-life set up in the picture-essay, “Art Twins,” Buffalo Courier-Express, Pictorial section, 6/10/1945.

xxxArtist index cards, PAFA archives.

xxxi“John Reed Exhibition,” Chicago Evening Post, 10/27/1931, Art Section, p.8.

xxxiiEdward Millman, “Art Notes: Highlights and Smudges,” The Chicagoan, Vol. 13, No. 5, December 1932, p.66.

xxxiiiHis sculpture Torso, was illustrated in The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 5/13/1930, p.4.

xxxivHis sculpture Fragment, was illustrated in The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 12/16/1930, p.4.

xxxvTom Vickerman, “If Ghosts of Pictures Could Join a Revue,” Chicago Evening Post, 3/8/1932, Art Section, p.6. His Derricks on the Chicago River, was illustrated in the 3/22 issue, p.6. Eleanor Jewett, “Current Exhibits Intrigue Interest: At the Chicago Galleries,” Chicago Tribune, 3/13/1932, part 8, p.5.

xxxviAlso represented in this exhibition were his father, brother, and young nephew, Adam Medill Albright, son of Ivan.

xxxviiThe show was put on at the same time and in competition with the annual exhibit of American art at the

Art Institute of Chicago. For a review see: Tom Vickerman, “Capone Got His, But Josimovich Still Baits Fate,” Chicago Evening Post, 11/3/1931, Art Section, p.8.

xxxviii“To Present Albright Twins,” Art Digest, Vol. 19, 9/15/1945. An entire gallery was devoted to his and his brother Ivan’s work.

xxxixHis Fragment, was illustrated in The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 12/3/1929, p.8.

xlHis Age of Darkness, was illustrated in The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 3/26/1929, p.13.

xliC. J. Bulliet, “Art Notes,” Chicago Daily News, 9/2/1939, Art and Music Section, p.11.

xliiHis sculpture Guinea Pig, was illustrated in The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 3/4/1930, p.4.

xliiiC. J. Bulliet, “Around the Galleries: Three Albrights,” Chicago Daily News, 4/9/1938, Art and Music Section, p.15.

xlivThis exhibition is referred to by, H. H. Herscher in “What’s in a Name?,” East Liverpool Ohio Review, 4/14/ 1942. Eleanor Jewett, “Photo Exhibit at Historical Salon Planned,” Chicago Tribune, 3/22/1942, p.H3.

xlvA critique of the show appeared in New York Sun, 10/27/1945, New York Public Library Artist File, A85/E5.

xlviC. J. Bulliet, “Art in Chicago: Season for Veterans,” Art Digest, Vol. 24, 4/15/1950, p.26.

xlviiA small but interesting pamplhlet was produced in conjunction with this modest exhibition. Despite several factual errors in the text, it is to date, the only essay whose aim is to tie together the art of Adam, Ivan and Malvin.

xlviiiHis bust of St. Francis, was illustrated in The Chicago Evening Post Magazine of the Art World, 9/11/1928, p.9.

xlixJ. Z. Jacobson, Art of Today, Chicago 1933, (Chicago: L. M. Stein, 1933), p.36.

l“Who’s Where,” Art Digest, Vol. 26, 11/1/1951, p.69.

liFor instance, in an article seemingly as pivotal and intimate as Marguerite B. Williams, “In An Art Colony,” Chicago Daily News 8/27/1930, which, though about Ivan comments to a fair degree on the Albright family’s artists. Williams had actually made the same mistake in an earlier article, see: “Here and there in the art world,” Chicago Daily News, 8/29/1928.