Ernest Albert

Monhegan Surf
c. 1930
Oil on Canvas
20 x 24

Ernest Albert (1857-1946)

A landscape painter, muralist, and theatrical set designer, Ernest Albert was born in Brooklyn, New York. A child prodigy, he received the Graham Art Medal at age 15, while studying at the Brooklyn Art Institute. At the age of twenty, he became a leading theatrical stage designer in New York, working on productions starring most of the best-known performers of the day. His work in this capacity led to his engagement as an interior designer for the colossal World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. While in Chicago, he helped found the American Society of Scenic Painters. Albert subsequently returned to New York City, where he resumed his theatrical work for approximately another decade.

Albert engaged in easel painting whenever he could find the time. In 1905, when he was at the pinnacle of his theatrical career he began to withdraw gradually from his theater work in order devote most of his considerable talent and energy to his landscape painting. Albert’s landscapes, painted mostly in Old Lyme, Connecticut and later on Monhegan Island, Maine (as well as a few on the West Coast), are simple in composition but subtle in effect. His impressionistic rendering of color and light imbue his quiet country scenes with all the magic of the moment. The gentle strength of these pictures and of his still lifes ensured their popularity and earned him a place as one of America’s respected artists. Albert was active in many organizations. He was a founder and first president of the Allied Artists of America and was elected to academician status in the National Academy of Design. Museums holding his work include the Florence Griswold Museum of Art, the Bruce Museum and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.