(Bottrop 1888-1976 New Haven) „Study for Homage to the square“, monogrammed, dated A 73, on the reverse titled and with details of the materials used, 1973, oil on Masonite, 40 x 40 cm, framed, (PP)

The work has been registered by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation under the number JAF 235.

Exhibition: Josef Albers: Homage to the Square, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, 27 October - 2 December 1989; The Mayor Gallery, London 1989

Literature: Jürgen Wißmann, Wieland Schmied, Josef Albers, Jean Arp, in: Josef Albers, Galerie Karsten Greve (Pub.), Cologne 1989, page 112-113 with ill.

Provenance: Sidney Janis Gallery, New York (gallery label on the reverse); Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne (2 gallery labels on the reverse); The Mayor Gallery, London (gallery label on the reverse); Galleria Orler, Favaro Veneto; Private Italian collection

The German-born artist Josef Albers joined the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1920. In 1933 the Bauhaus was closed by the National Socialists and so Albers emigrated with his wife to the USA. He taught at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina and at Yale University in Connecticut, allowing him to exert a significant influence on young American painting. Like Piet Mondrian and Kasimir Malewitsch, Albers concentrated on the geometric form, selecting the simple form of the square. From 1949 onwards he painted his famous series „Homage to the square“ in which he experimented with the interaction between colours, forms, lines and surfaces. Each painting in the series shows three or four squares nesting amongst one other, in a variety of colours, but ones which Albers never mixed. He used industrial paints. In his „Study of Homage to the square“ dated 1973 he places a blue, a grey and a green square on a white background. The grey appears to rise up out of the blue and be physically closer to the observer. Here Albers plays with the optical effects which also assume a central role in the works of Victor Vasarely.

Correction:
The art work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.

The work has been registered by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation under the number JAF 235. Exhibition: Josef Albers: Homage to the Square, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, 27 October - 2 December 1989; The Mayor Gallery, London 1989 Literature: Jürgen