Schwarzer Kreis (Black Circle)

1933 · Print

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Schwarzer Kreis (Black Circle)” now? Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.

National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C., United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 13 days ago
In this state since: Aug 19, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

Details

Accession number: 1951.16.2

What it shows

Non-representational Geometric

In the catalog

Prints Woodcut Modernism 20th century American

Sources

National Gallery of Art
Image: National Gallery of Art — © the artist or rights holder

In the life of Josef Albers

The whole life

1927–1931
Designs a stencil typeface
Albers experimented with geometrically constructed stencil letters for posters and signs; the display typeface Architype Albers was later based on them.
1933
The Bauhaus closes; emigration to the United States
When the Bauhaus closed under Nazi pressure in 1933, Albers was among the first of its teachers to emigrate to the United States. The architect Philip Johnson, then a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, arranged for him to be offered the headship of a new art school, Black Mountain College in North Carolina.
November 1933
“To open eyes”: his first English sentence
When Albers arrived at Black Mountain College, a student asked him what he was going to teach. His first English sentence was “to open eyes” — and it became the motto of all his teaching.
1933–1949
Black Mountain summer seminars and famous pupils
To Black Mountain's summer seminars Albers invited leading American artists to teach — Willem de Kooning, the choreographer Merce Cunningham, the Harlem Renaissance painter Jacob Lawrence. His students included Ruth Asawa, Ray Johnson, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly and Susan Weil; Rauschenberg, despite their often combative relationship, later named Albers his most important teacher. In these years Albers made many woodcuts and leaf studies.
1933–1949
Employed by: Black Mountain College