Albert Irvin OBE RA Untitled opus w.30

This work is part of the Keeper’s House display Albert Irvin OBE RA : Brought to Light, the Unseen Watercolours, on show in the Sir Hugh Casson Room from 30 January 2020.

‘However adverse the circumstances are, whatever splendours or miseries we’ve been through, there’s an inextinguishable life force that carries us through. I would like to find, if possible, some way of expressing that through the elements of creation I use - colour, gesture, shape, structure.’
Albert Irvin OBE RA

Throughout his career, Albert Irvin OBE RA preferred to exhibit his current works and often resisted showing retrospective elements of his practice. As a result of this, his early watercolours have long been admired but few have ever been shown publicly. It is a fitting tribute to the artist to now reveal a selection of these previously unseen watercolours in their first dedicated display.

Irvin was born in 1922 in London where he lived and worked all his life. He studied at Northampton School of Art from 1940 to 1941, before serving as a navigator in the RAF during World War II. After the war he went on to study at Goldsmiths College where he later returned to teach between 1962 to 1983. He continued producing work until his death on 26 March 2015, aged 92.
During his life, Irvin exhibited extensively throughout Europe and in Australia and America. His works are in many public collections including the Royal Academy of Arts, Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney amongst others.
Albert Irvin OBE RA was elected a Royal Academician in 1998 and was awarded an OBE in 2013 for services to the visual arts.