Art: Lavender & Old Bottles

Chicago art lovers, startled by Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida, fascinated by prize-winning That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do, were proud when the Chicago Art Institute this week announced that it had bought, for Chicago's very own, Ah God—Herrings, Buoys, The Glittering Sea.

"Ida," "That Which," "Ah God" are all painted by cheerful little grey-haired Ivan Le Lorraine Albright, who works happily in the husk of an abandoned Methodist Church in Warrenville, Ill., an hour's drive outside Chicago. All three pictures have a microscopic detail...