Josef AlbersAmerican, 1888–1976SP-VIII
May one see it?
Not receiving at present
Minneapolis Institute of Art
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, which comes from a portfolio of twelve published in 1967. 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
Particulars
- Accession number
- 2016.33.48
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
Meanwhile, 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.
22 June – 5 July 1968
Oral history interview for the Archives of American Art
In a long oral history interview Albers declared: “Art is not to be looked at. Art is looking at us.”
27 June 1968 – 6 October 1968
Exhibition: 4. documenta
1969–1970
Gives his papers to the Smithsonian
Albers donated his papers, documents from 1929 to 1970, to the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.
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”.
![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)
