Collection: Albert Irvin

Albert Irvin is one of the UK's most highly respected abstract experessionists, known for his exuberant paintings, watercolours, screenprints and gouaches. Born in London, where he continues to live and work, his art tends to focus on capturing and exploring 'the experience of being in the world.'In the early 1940s he attended the Northampton School of Art, before joining the RAF where he served as navigator during the War.  Then in 1946 he enrolled at Goldsmiths College in London. He graduated four years later with a National Diploma in Design. Irvin would later return to Goldsmiths in 1962 where he taught Art for over twenty years.Throughout the 1950s Irvin began to develop his unique style of literal meaning through his painting. In his early career he battled with the two alternatives of abstraction and figuration. It was not until the mid-1950s when Irvin finally moved away from relying on figures and social realism in his work and embraced an approach closer to metaphor and the abstract.Irvin’s reputation began to swell in the art world as his paintings grew in merit, maturity of style, and value. He was invited to display his work at more and more exhibitions in both Britain and abroad. A new freedom to experiment also found its way into over his work as he ‘played’ with canvas size, colour, structure, shape, and composition.He began his screenprinting career in 1980. The collaborative approach of screenprinting, although a new and very different outlet from painting, still allowed Irvin to display many of his characteristic traits as an artist. He would quickly affirm his reputation as one of Britain’s foremost printmakers.Albert Irvin - born 21 August 1922 - celebrated his 90th birthday in 2012. He is still very much active both as a painter and screenprinter. To mark his long and influential career as an artist, tutor and inspiration to his many admirers, look out for a range of events, exhibitions and new work taking place or on show around the world.Irvin's work is held in public and private collections worldwide, including:  The Aberdeen Art Gallery; Anglo American plc, London; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Arthur Andersen, London; Arts Council of Great Britain; British Council; Chase Manhatten Bank; Chelsea and Westminster Hospital; Clipstream, London; Contemporary Art Society; Deutsche Bank, London and Frankfurt; Government Art Collection; Homerton Hospital, London; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Mobil Oil; National Westminster Bank; Pensecola Museum, Florida; Schindler Collection, Zurich; Stuyvesant Collection,  Holland; Tate Gallery, London; Unilever; Victoria and Albert Museum; City Art Galleries in Birmingham, Blackburn, Huddersfield, Manchester, Stoke and Wolverhampton; University Art Galleries/Collections in Cambridge (Jesus College, Churchill College), Dublin (Trinity College), Lancaster, Liverpool, Northumbria, Oxford (St Johns College), Southampton, Warwick and Woolongong, Australia