“Can I reveal the splendours and agonies of life through space, colour, light, shape, line, confrontation, rhythm…?” - Albert Irvin

This catalogue was made in conjunction with the first major posthumous exhibition of early works by and one of the best Abstract Expressionist artists of Britain, Albert Irvin, OBE, RA.

Having started out in the 1950s as a figurative artist Irvin managed to break free from its constraints after discovering Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko in 1956, reinventing himself as an exponent of a dazzlingly vigorous Abstract Expressionism and becoming one of Britain’s most respected abstract artists and a true colourist.

Irvin’s had a deep connection with the Royal Academy and was naturally elected an RA member in 1998. Today more than 60 museums and institutions worldwide owning examples of his work.

Whitford Fine Art present a number of key works from the 1950s and 1960s directly from the Estate, paintings that Irvin himself was reluctant to part with.