Josef Albers
Study for Homage to the Square
1967
Oil on masonite. 60.7 x 60.7 cm. Framed. Monogrammed and dated 'A67'. Titled 'Study for Homage to the Square' verso on masonite and with measurements and multiline information on the work. - Traces of studio and minor traces of age.
For over 26 years, Josef Albers devoted himself to his most famous series of works which he called “Homage to the Square”. These works, in which he declined the same composition of colour squares set into each other, are each in themselves a tribute to colour and the individual, subjective perception thereof.
The artist’s affinity for mathematics underlies the series of works. Around 1950, he developed the composition scheme – in the final solution, the squares are shifted downwards, resulting in an optical compression and an impression of gravity that seems to affect the squares. With great care, he formed the shapes freehand from the inside outwards using a great variety of different pigments. He attached extraordinary importance to the artisanal process and the resulting expressiveness of the colour surface.
The colours continually interact with one another, always in the same basic composition, collide and push into each other, seem to float in front of each other or sink into each other. “Painting means allowing the colour to act,” Albers writes, “acting involves changing character and behaviour, mood and tempo. An actor makes us forget his name and personality traits. He creates an illusion and acts as someone other than who he actually is. Colour that acts loses its identity, appears as another colour, lighter or darker, more or less intensive, more luminous or duller, warmer or colder…” (cited from: Josef Albers. Interaction, exhib.cat. Villa Hügel, Essen 2018, p. 189f.)
Certificate
The present artwork is registered in The Josef Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut. We would like to thank Jeannette Redensek, Bethany, Connecticut, for further information.
Provenance
Estate of Josef Albers; Josef Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut; Galerie Denise René, Paris (adhesive label verso) (1991); private collection, Belgium
Exhibitions
Paris 1987 (Galerie Denise René), Josef Albers (adhesive label verso)
Madrid 1987 (Galeria Theo), Josef Albers, Obras 1955-1973, exhib.cat.no.21 (adhesive label verso)