Josef AlbersAmerican, 1888–1976GB 1
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “GB 1” now? Collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Minneapolis, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Josef Albers taught modernist art theory at Germany's Bauhaus until the Nazis forced its closure in 1933. He then left for America, where he continued his teaching and investigations into the interaction of colors. Around 1950, he began his Homage to the Square series, which preoccupied him for the rest of life. In more than one thousand paintings, prints, drawings, and tapestries, he studied the effects that adjacent colors have on one another and the illusions of space such juxtapositions could produce. All the compositions feature squares, which appear to be stacked or nested, as seen in this screenprint. Though he had scientific goals for his work, its great popularity was due to its kinship with the hard-edged abstraction and op-art that followed in Albers's wake.
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Details
- Accession number
- 2013.35.727
In the catalog
Sources
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — © The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
In the life of Josef Albers
The whole life1954–1973
Fireplaces and façades with the architect King-lui Wu
Albers created decorative designs for buildings by the Yale professor and architect King-lui Wu: geometric fireplaces for the Rouse (1954) and DuPont (1959) houses, the façade of the Manuscript Society, a Yale secret senior society (1962), and a design for Mt. Bethel Baptist Church (1973).
1965–1967
A MoMA show tours the Americas
Albers's work was in the group show “The Responsive Eye” (1965), and a major Albers exhibition organised by the Museum of Modern Art travelled through South America, Mexico and the United States in 1965–1967.
27 June 1968 – 6 October 1968
Exhibition: 4. documenta
8 December 1969 – 24 February 1970
“The Graphic Constructions” at MoMA
The Museum of Modern Art in New York showed the solo exhibition “The Graphic Constructions of Josef Albers”.
1971
Founds the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation
Nearly five years before his death Albers founded a nonprofit foundation that he hoped would further “the revelation and evocation of vision through art”; today it administers the estates of both Josef and Anni Albers.
19 November 1971 – 11 January 1972
First living artist with a solo show at the Met
The exhibition of Albers's paintings and prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art made him the first living artist to be given a solo show there; it has also been called a retrospective.
![Oskar Schlemmer; [Schlemmer] in the Master’s Council; [Schlemmer] with Wittwer, Kallai, and Marianne Brandt, Preliminary Course Exhibition; [Schlemmer] and Tut, Josef Albers, 1928-30/1932](https://www.moma.org/media/W1siZiIsIjMzNzk1NyJdLFsicCIsImNvbnZlcnQiLCItcmVzaXplIDEwMjR4MTAyNFx1MDAzZSJdXQ.jpg?sha=0cbde6ed2e4731ed)
