Evoking both French impressionism and the regionalist spirit of the WPA, this Dewey Albinson oil on canvas shows a pair of figures (seemingly father and daughter) walking through a country lane on a summer afternoon. With their backs to the viewer, the pair walk from the shadows towards the sunshine, but further down their path lies a darkening landscape. Perhaps representing the fear of the unknown that all parents feel as they eventually have to let go of the hands of their children. A powerful and atypical painting by the well listed Minnesota-based Albinson, in its original hand crafted and painted wood frame.

Dewey Albinson was born in Minneapolis, Minneapolis March 9, 1898. He began painting at the age of 15, and studied at the Minneapolis School of Art, the Art Students’ League of New York to which he had a scholarship, in Paris and Italy. He has received many awards, and has exhibited widely in this country and abroad. Mr. Albinson has executed a mural for the Cloquet Minnesota Post Office under the program of the Section of Fine Arts.

Dewey Albinson brought an expressionist approach of bold brushstrokes and strong colors to upper Midwestern subjects like farmsteads, towns and cities, Native American life, and the North Shore region of Lake Superior. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Art (today the Minneapolis College of Art and Design), the Art Students League in New York City, and in France and Italy. Following several years painting in France and Italy, Albinson directed the St. Paul School of Art back in Minnesota. During the Depression he painted Minneapolis and University of Minnesota scenes for the Public Works of Art Project; painted for, and directed the Education Division of, the WPA Federal Art Project in Minnesota; and painted murals for the post offices of Cloquet, Minnesota and Marquette, Michigan.