1929-1930
painting by
Ivan Albright, (
oil on
canvas), currently in the
Art Institute of Chicago. Albright turns a 21-year old model into a
portrait of an old woman, seated with her legs crossed on a
wicker stool in front of her
dresser, staring mournfully down into a
hand mirror held in her right hand, while her left pads her breast with a
cosmetic sponge. The
background is black for the upper two-thirds of the painting, shading into a dark red-splotched carpet. "Ida"'s skin and hair is painted using pallid yellow and green tones, highlighted to produce wrinkles and
vericose veins in stark contrast with the dark and subdued tones of the painting as a whole; her
cheeks and
lips are stained with red. The effect is completed by the
wilted flowers on the dresser and the haphazardly strewn purse on the ground behind the stool.
The painting gives the impressions of faded youth and hopeless vanity, a perfect example of Albrights life-long obsession with portraying the passage of time.