Albert Irvin: Six Paintings

Once described as powerful manifestations of the Abstract Sublime, Albert Irvin’s monumental paintings, with their blazing hues and restlessly dynamic spaces are an abstract hymn to London, its architecture, energy, diversity and above all its people.

Since his conversion to abstraction in the mid1950’s, Irvin has been exploring the possibility that non-representational painting can express profound emotion. By developing a visual language of painterly motifs, squares, circles, lines and crosses, his large colour saturated canvases derive from the experience of movement and time, rather than abstracted representations of specific events or places.

Passionate about all kinds of music from Bach to Harrison Birtwistle, Irvin’s imperative lies in the belief that painting can aspire to an equivalent level of expression as music. Kandinsky observed that ‘A painter who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own.’

The paintings in this exhibition reflect Irvin’s belief that “starting a new painting is like going for a walk without knowing where you are going: it’s an adventure, where anything could happen.”

After serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II, Irvin resumed his studies at Goldsmith’s College in 1946, where he subsequently became a tutor. He has since become one of the country’s most admired abstract painters. Irvin was elected to the Royal Academy in 1998 and his work continues to excite and energise audiences.

Exhibition Curator: Mara-Helen Wood, Director, Northumbria University Gallery

Please contact the gallery for further information and prices.

Exhibition Open:  Monday – Friday 10am – 7.30 pm / Saturday - Sunday 11am – 6.30pm
Admission Free