Josef Albers
Born – Bottrup, Germany 1888
Died – New Haven, USA 1976
Josef Albers’ early academic training in Berlin, Essen and Munich encouraged a formal approach which he later combined with a sense of experimentation developed while studying, and later teaching, at the Bauhaus. During his time in Weimar, Albers worked as a designer of furniture as well as an abstract painter. He refined his abstract style after moving to the USA in 1933, where he also became seduced by colour. In the United States he continued to study and to teach, publishing an influential book on colour theory in 1963. He was regarded as one of the great geometric abstract painters at a time when abstract painting in general had been monopolized by Abstract Expressionists such as Pollock and Rothko. His Homage to the Square series of paintings exemplify his cool detached approach to pictorial composition. In Homage to the Square: Blue Climate each square hovers on top of the other – there is no chaotic competition between colours, rather a gentle and peaceful receptivity. Through the application of successive different layers of pure colour, Albers manages to create the optical illusion of depth in his work.
Masterpieces:
- Homage to the Square: Apparition
- Skyscrapers
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.
Books About josef albers
Interaction of Color: Revised and Expanded Edition
Josef Albers
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Interaction of Color: New Complete Edition
Josef Albers
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An Eye for Color: The Story of Josef Albers
Natasha Wing
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