Josef Albers

JOSEF ALBERS

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JOSEF

A LB E R

S:

A

Retrospective

Albers

in his

Photo by

Bauhaus

Umbo

studio, Dessau, 1928

JOSEF ALBERS A Retrospective

Solomon

I

his exhibition

Guggenheim Museum. New York

R.

has received grants from BAS1

(

orporation and the Federal Republic of German)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Albers, Josef.

Josef Albers: a retrospective/Solomon R. p.

Guggenheim Museum,

New York.

cm.

Text by Nicholas Fox Weber et

Catalog of an exhibition held Bibliography:

p.

al.

at

Guggenheim Museum,

New York,

1988.

29

Paper ISBN 0-89207-067-6 Cloth ISBN 0-8109- 8761

I.

II.

Albers, Josef-Exhibitions.

Solomon

R.

I.

Weber, Nicholas Fox, 194^-

Guggenheim Museum.

N6888.A5A4 1988

709'.2'4-dci9

III.

Title.

87-36930

Published by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation,

Copyright

Š

New York,

1988 by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation,

1988

New York

"Josef Albers" by Jean Arp published by permission of Fondation Arp, Clamart

Cover:

cat. no. 190, Variant:

lour Reds Around Blue. 1948. Private

C

ollection

for Anni Albers

Lenders to the Exhibition

Anni Albers

Bill

Bass,

Chicago

Mark Simon, Connecticut

Hollins College, Roanoke, Virginia

Andrea and John Weil, Saskatoon

Louisiana

Museum

of

Modern

Art,

Humlebtrk, Denmark Martina and Michael Yamin

Ernst Beyeler, Basel

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. James H.Clark,

Jr.,

New York

Dallas

Addison Gallery of American Art, Esther

M. Cole

Phillips

Academy, Andover,

Musee National dArt Moderne, Centre

Massachusetts

Georges Pompidou, Paris

The Josef Albers Foundation

The Museum

Theodore and Barbara Dreier Mr. and Mrs. Lee

V.

of

Modern

Art,

New York

Eastman Josef Albers

Mr. and Mrs. Paul M. Hirschland,

Museum,

Bottrop,

San Francisco

New York

Staatliche

Maria and Conrad Janis, Beverly

Museum

of

Modern Art

W. Germany

Museen

Preussischer

Australian National Gallery-, Canberra

Kulturbesitz, Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Bauhaus-Archiv, W. Berlin

Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford

Hills

Donald and Barbara Jonas

Solomon

Don

Page,

Maximilian

R.

Guggenheim Museum,

Yale University Art Gallery,

New Haven

New York

New York

Hirshhorn

Schell

Museum and

Sculpture

Ex

Libris,

New York

Garden, Smithsonian Institution,

Hannelore

B. Schulhof,

New York

Washington, D.C.

Prakapas Gallery,

New York

Table of

[uergen

F.

Strubc

Diane Waldman

Nicholas Fox Webei

Mar)

Emma

Charles

N<

il

E.

H.irris

10

i

Sponsor's Statement

Preface

i

and Acknowledgments

rhe Artist as Alchemist

14

50

Josef Albers:

Rickan

Benezra

ontents

(

\

I

ducationat Hl.uk Mountain

Structural Analysis ol

^4

New

s

t

1

An

of Albers's

Challenges Beyond the Studio:

atalogue

2.87

Chronolo

19

Selected Bibliograph)

^

Some

xhibitions and Reviews

197

Selected

?oi

Photographic

I

C

redits

I

W01

(

ollege

k

he Murals and Sculpture of [osef Albers

JOSEF ALBERS

The beautiful pictures of our ugly age should be seen and read with the eyes of a child.

The pictures of Albers are not only a

treat for the eye

but they also

convey meaning.

They grow

in

profundity as they are looked at with eyes

uncorrupted, and grasped penetratingly.

They are as

wood

like the

you are

into

which one

calls

and from which

it

echoes

called.

Like nature they are a mirror.

Each of his

pictures has a heart.

They never break

The are not They have a

castigated lashes. clear

Here

content:

I

I

do not hurry away.

I

won't have anyone harass and exasperate me.

on

earth.

/

am am

I

can wait.

I

do not drive myself from the picture

I

do not drive myself into bottomless depth.

I

of

I

and great

stand.

am resting. am m this world and

I

Many

into bits, crumble, turn into dust.

my

not a frantic machine. not faint-hearted.

friends

and

their pictures

into the incommensurate.

do no longer want

to be here.

Neither friend nor picture have any longer an existence.

They want

to

go

How one longs

to the devil.

in their

The world that Albers

presence for an Albers.

creates carries in

the inner weight of the fulfilled

To be blessed

we have

This holds also for art

its

heart

man.

to have faith.

and above

Who would have forseen to unbelief, to noise, to

all for

that our earth

the art of our time.

would he so

Ascona, 1957

Translated from the

by our brain

mechanical frenzy, to carefully recorded

raggedness, to teleguided disbelief.

jean arp,

led

German

original by

Anni Albers

Albas

at his

Photo

bj

[on

home N

in

New Haven,

[965

Sponsor's Statement

BASF first

is

pleased to be the corporate sponsor of the

major retrospective of the works of Josef Albers.

Upon

his emigration

States in 1933,

posure to

artists

had

as yet

little

ex-

the advanced trends and ideas then current in

Europe. Albers became their recognized champion in the

New World.

His achievements served as a major

fluence in the training of artists, architects In later years, Albers's theories

on

and

light,

a

company rooted

chemical synthesis,

from Germany to the United

American

As

in-

designers.

color and

the

world

in science in

in

new

European pioneering of

in

BASF

is

also

accustomed to seeing

ways. The company's innovativeness

and technology has become well established

North America.

BASF

is

therefore

proud

to sponsor this unprecedented

chronological overview of the rich and varied scope

of Albers's

work

at the

Solomon

Museum.

perception influenced computer techniques, particularly in color control

of videos.

as the noted art historian

It

can be truly

said,

Werner Spies remarked, "He

did not teach painting, but seeing: not

psychology and philosophy of art."

art,

but the

juergen

F. STRUBE, Chairman BASF Corporation

R.

Guggenheim

Preface and Ac/know ledgments

was

Josef Albers

the

sum

man)

oi

designer, teacher, theoretician. I').

ih.it

school dosed

ollege, near

C

members

mli. uis facult)

in

Ashe\

19

;.

\

he

came

North

ille,

position of professoi ol

The

come

to

Ik-

ik-

.1

Bauhaus graduate, and developed

of several

Mountain assume the

taught with his

Anni AJbers, the distinguished weaver and

revolutionized art education

in

a

herself

curriculum that

two

1414 the architect Walter Gropius consolidated in

Weimar

A

Bauhaus

As

a

number

I

in

ol

Moholy-Nag) founded

the

ird University,

soundly trained as

aszlo

new Bauhaus now the Institute of Design of the Illinois Technolog)

a\k\ Albers, as

Mountain

to Black

ierman

C

we have

ollege. Albers

noted,

in

19

;

wrote

in

;:

the Deutscher

...the student

a

to his

workshop

emphasis placed on the stuck

tor design

w

I

<>f

form

clear as

own

real inclinations

,uk\ use of materials.

As

The curriculum was based on Formlehre instruc-

problems of form) which was arranged

moving from Observation

ami

abilities. In short,

art instruction attempts first to teach the

lamilton has noted:

three degrees,

become aware

first

and thereby become

ith

student to see leard

should

in general,

craftsman. To that end, the

our

tion in

1

he nucleus of Bauhaus teaching was the

school was to be a practical

I

Bauhaus

of the figures associated with the

problems

;

threat in Europe, a

the

principle that the architect, painter or sculptor should b<

Gropius to teach the

of the school here: Gropius joined the facult)

(

Werkbund.

b)

growing Na/i

result of the

went an idea that had ahead) been put into practice

movement and

was united

b\

to stud) at the

the course.

Institute of

crafts

19-0,

who had come

preliminar) course in 1923.111 1928 he took charj

abolish the distinction between tine and applied arts,

and

Albers,

ltten. in

preliminary

its

was mitialb developed and taught

course, which

Johannes

to create

Bauhaus. Gropius was convinced of the need to

ish arts

Bauhaus teaching was

focal point of

emigrated to America and disseminated the principles

America.

separate schools of arts and crafts tlie

painter,

America after

to Black

w

In

first

to

arolina, to

<,

There

art.

parts:

in

the

m the tadest sense: to open his exes

to the

phenomena about him and. most important

of

to

all.

open

to his

own

and

doing.

work

in art

common

tasks

living, being,

In this connection ire consider class

studies necessary because of the

and mutual

criticism.'

study 0/ nature and analysis 0/ materials) through Representation

and

descriptive geometry, techniques

constructions,

of space, color

etc.

to

and design

(

.

'imposition

theories

\lbers these studies revealed:

the intuitive search for

"On

and discover)

the

one hand

of form;

on the

other hand the knowledge And application of the

1

fundamental laws of form...." And, as he also noted, "All rendering of form, in fact all creative

between

polarities: intuition

between subjectivity and

and

work, moves

intellect,

objectivity.

or possibly

Their relative

importance continually varies and they always more or

less

overlap."

'

In his

own work Albers expressed the

the

program

as visiting critics.

The dialogue

that Albers

both schools was enhanced by

encouraged

at

whose work

often differed radically from his

artists

own and

contributed to the fame of each institution. At Yale, as at Black

Mountain, he organized

and supervised courses

in

classes in basic design

drawing and

color.

concepts that he set before his students. Albers's impact Albers's continuing investigation of artistic absolutes led

him

to isolate the motif of the square

most rigorous format Square

series

in

1950.

and

create his

The Homage

allowed Albers to present color

infinite variations.

As he observed

in

to the in

its

1952:

his

on

painting, sculpture

and design both

and theoretician are undisputed.

as teacher

most renowned students, such

berg and Eva Hesse,

as

who became

Many

Robert Rauschenimportant

artists

Some

developed idioms at odds with Albers's aesthetic. students,

of

most notably Richard Anuskiewicz and

Julian Stanczak, directly adapted Albers's theories and

The painter chooses

Some of,

to articulate with or in color.

painters consider color an

and

accompaniment

therefore subordinate to,

pictorial content. To others,

increasing number, color their pictorial idiom.

is

form or other

and today again, the structural

in

an

means

of

Here color becomes au-

methods of working other

artists like

to their

own

ends.

Donald Judd, Frank

The work

Stella

and Sol

Lewitt-indeed many of the Minimalists of the 1960s—

owes much

to Albers's theories

and the example of

painting, engraved plastics and

prints.

Many

his

differ-

ences notwithstanding, the Minimalist aesthetic, based

tonomic.

as

My

advanced materials and relationships of highly

paintings are presentative in the latter direc-

tion.

I

am

interested particularly in the psychic

it

is

on

simplified forms,

is

indebted to Albers's ideas.

today

tion

albeit in a

1949 Albers

left

became chairman of University.

Black Mountain and the

1950 he at Yale

At Black Mountain he had invited a wide

variety of artists to teach during the

he asked

in

Department of Design

many

summer;

at Yale

distinguished artists to participate in

among Taaffe.

new

form, and

it

seems evident that Albers style,

them Peter Halley, Ross Bleckner and Peter It is

true that the Utopian vision underlying the

theoretical positions artists

And

we are witnessing a revival of geometric painting,

effect-esthetic experience caused by the interac-

of colors.

the use of repetitive units, technologically

has had an impact on the young adherents of this In

of

and

and work of Albers and other

architects of his generation

relevant in today's

more

may

not be

cynical climate. Neverthe-

an remains

Albers's

less,

and

totality in

of itself,

generations ol influence thf

sum

may

.is

.1

and

valid

Indeed the

artists.

vital as ever, a

pouu

starting

for

younger

of

Albers's

effect

be growing; he ma) be more than

still

Museum who worked on

among

Curator, .\nd

who

were

Assist. nit his exhibition of Albers's lifework

I

and

nial Dt the artist's birth

is

the

marks

the centen-

xecutive

1

luesi

I

>in

ctorol

I

he [osef Albers

1

I

ox Weber,

lundation and

1

urator of this presentation, selected the

(.

shown and contributed

the

mam

essa) to the

works

accom

panying catalogue, we are extremel) grateful to him

and knowledgeable collaboration.

for his enthusiastic

Amu

Albers, the artist's widow, offered us essential

support ,\ud

,ul\ ice

Albers

1

oundation

We

project.

during

all

Thomas Padon,

(

uratorial Assistant,

Fuerstein, Editor,

ditor,

1

were responsible

catalogue and seeing

it

and Diana Murphy, tor the editing of the

through the

press.

Mam

m

works

this exhibition

shown. They shed new or

little

on previousl) unknown

understood aspects of Albers's

the lenders, both private

works, lo

we

all

career.

We

were

on the enlightened generosit)

therefore dependent

tive,

light

have never before been

and

of

institutional, of Albers's

these lenders to Josef Albers:

\

Retrospec-

express our deepest gratitude.

phases of the exhibition's

We acknowledge

organization.

central

comprehensive

first

retrospective ever devoted to him. Nicholas

(

Most

activel) involved in all aspects of the under-

taking. Carol

of his parts.

the project.

these were Susan B. Hirschfeld, Assistant

Kell)

Feene)

of the

DIAN1

for her valuable participation in the

waldman.

Deputy Director

Guggenheim Museum

-non R.

could not have realized the exhibition And

the present publication without the indispensable ration of the Albers

1

oundation, which shared

made

important archival materials and

crucial loans

available.

Our t

deepest gratitude

u >n

extended to BAS1

is

and the Federal Republic

generous support on

German)

of

orpora-

(

tor their

auspicious occasion.

this

NOTES 1

I

George Heard Hamilton,

he scope ol the catalogue has been greatl) enhanced

Neal Benezra,

by the perceptive essays written tor

it

Mar)

Rickart.

b\

\h.

1956, <

i

iiim.

1

1

1.

in

is

and

1

harles

I

.

We would ;

like to

thank the

mam

nuln iduals

at the

(

iuggenheim

^

p.

Quoted

1

m

...it..

NcÂŤ Haven,

Yale Uni\

Gallery,

;.

Hamilton,

Ibid. Ibid.,

'3

The Artist

as Alchemist

NICHOLAS FOX WEBER

To most people he

is

known

over a thousand of his ings

and

man." For

as "the square

the last twenty-five years of his

Homages

made

Josef Albers

life

to the Square, paint-

prints in four careful formats that gave color

He

an unprecedented voice.

called

them

"platters to

serve color": vehicles for the presentation of different

color climates and various color effects, above the demonstration of the

way

all

for

that solid colors change

popular

life.

to enter the

mainstream of

Simple yet poetic, they were clearly laden

with significance. They became the subject of television

magazine

specials;

as well as endless

more

specialized publications; the

basis of cartoons (see figs,

one-man at

i,

the core of the

2);

retrospective ever given to a

major

the

first

living artist

New

York.

a United States postage

stamp

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

One was reproduced on embodying

and Time,

articles in Life, Realties

in

motto of the Department of Education,

"Learning Never Ends." With their neutral format, of history or connotations, not only did the

show

free

Homages

aspects of color that had never before been seen

so clearly, but they also

modesty and

became

diligence. Rarely

a

had

symbol of

Homages

when he was

1950,

artistic

a secular painter so

is

based primarily on the

to the Square, he did not begin

them

until

sixty-two years old. His previous

in

much

the

had extolled

visual

nuance and mixed playfulness with

work was

formalism.

one of his

no. 4),

same

vein.

From

the start Albers

Life with Russian Box, ca. 1914 (cat.

Still

earliest

known oils, shares many traits

with the Homages. Ideas that would eventually be the

main point appear

according to their positions and surroundings.

The Honiages were quick

While Albers's reputation

in their incipient

form

in this early

painting. Solid colors are surrounded by solid colors.

Darker ones make

lighter

ones look brighter yet. Broad

planes have been foreshortened to intensify their impact; the shifts between them are abrupt and star-

Like the Homages, Russian

tling.

number of elements with

limited

Box

presents a

the portent of high

drama.

Here and

in the

roughly contemporaneous Masks and

Vase, 1916 (cat. no. 5), Albers

go

his

his

own

much

consistent way. In

had already learned to

Masks and

later series of linear

Vase, as in

geometric drawings

called the Structural Constellations (see cat. nos. 171176),

he

plane at right angles to the overall shape

set a

with uncanny you're not sure

effect.

Again

what you're

his later

themes prevail

seeing; blacks

and whites

completely suppressed his ego and personal psychol-

sharpen their teeth against one another; red looks one

ogy to embark on such

way

in

a rigorous

service of a single cause.

totally secular;

But

although Albers

course of repetition in fact

known

religious imagers,

color

magical and intensely spiritual.

'4

is

he was not

may not have

used

what he evoked through

in

white surrounds, another

the painting

is

in black.

unusual and haunting;

quite like anyone else's.

The

subject

it

Moreover,

doesn't look

and contortions

conjure Nolde, Ensor and Picasso's Les Demoiselles

d'Avignon; the background hints

at certain

Blaue

-

Reiter pictures; but above .1

ma) not have found

Ins

degree to the

.1

where Albers

Berlin,

unusuall)

.irt

hcuiii

feist)

and

m

1888

in

w.is the son of

When

i

Drawing by C. E.M.; I

In-

New

<!

^

spirited .mist.

Bottrop,

asked

bleak mining

.1

Ruhr River region

late

dominated

his

in

of

proud

laborer, forever

.1

of the standards of craftsmanship that

childhood.

iyi

and bold use of

reveal an independent,

highly industrialized

in the

Germany. He

the tmu- in

.it

and studied between

lived

colors, the)

was born

Albers cit)

rhese pictures

shown

[915, but in their vibrant linearit)

unmodulated

painter

Its

and he would freeh

Ins subject to reach Ins goals,

relate to

and

here.

mature voice, but he had no

l.uk of vigor or self-assurance, distort

something unique,

is

and mystical, going on

bizarre

bit

there

.ill

about

life

his

his

i

working methods

Yorkei Magazine, Inc.

Homages, he would

tor the

often

explain that he always began with the center square

because

his lather,

who, among other

houses, had instructed him as a young

you paint Drawing ["he

New

Win. Hamilton; Yorker Magazine, Inc.

b)

!

it;

door you

a

things, painted

man

that

when

middle and work

start in the

outward. "That way you catch the drips, and don't your cuffs dirty." Albers revered

and always

stressed

its

his practical

came from my [dam,

father, very

that's all

background.

education

preeminence over more esoteric

pm

influences that art historians tried to

/

much, and from

came from

/

on him.

a handicraft

My father knew the rules, the recipes,

and he taught thou electricity into

t<>

me

our house.

I

too.

le

lie

put

all

practical mind.

handlings that

I

I

the

could do the plumb-

ing, ^lass etching, ^lass painting, everything.

had a very

get

was exposed

learned to steal with

my

to

Ih

many

eyes)

Albers was proud that his mother descended from a line of

blacksmiths. "To

horseshoe,

it

u.is

That dexterity

from the tions

•

"Hj.Ii

csnMss, A.

our nt-u

:

•

Mberi prinu, quiihe out to be like

"

—

is

earl)

evident

oils

mk\ Homages tive

make

good

a

necessan to have

skill

in the entire

nail

of the

tor a

hand."

range of his

art,

through the Structural Constellato the Square.

I

he concern with

methods and proper technique remained

imperative to

1

orenz and Magdalena Albers's son not

:,

onlv in his work, but also in his teaching, an area in

'5

which he made some of

Germany

his greatest contributions. In

Bauhaus, and

at the

Mountain College and Yale

name

would be

would

Albers by this time could

woman's

down

for a

to develop the ability to

in reverse.

scales, in

success than

shape. As a printmaker Albers

learn to manipulate

modern methods;

hand so

of

skills

who could not recognize or an athlete who did not woodblocks, study the

and pursue

application of lithographic inks all

Without

musician

and was not

in

the Kaiser Friedrich

draw

knotted scarf and bun with authority and

was

mirror script, as well as upside

in

proper pitch and play exercise

in Berlin.

was no more chance of

this sort, there

there

Museum

details of her

was necessary

upside

University, he taught

Durer's

endeavor. Whatever one's

artistic bent,

write one's

in

He

all

down and

work

must have

observed

competently.

must underlie it

the effect of the sort of drawing technique he

Black

at

the imperative that

students that technical mastery artistic

America

in

as a painter he

virtually

would develop

his

from the

as to be able to apply paints straight

tube, with a painter's knife, to abut one another

and the

sequence of curves.

And

between

right as well as foreground

left

and

background-of

there

type

the

throughout the body of

The approach

is

ongoing motion here-

that

recurs

of Diirer as well as Holbein oil

of about 1915

is

(cat.

artists,

himself from the subject even

when it was his own

When

of himself, Albers

he

made

also

no.

Like these other Northern

his late

and

frequently

work.

his

evident in a self-portrait

3).

Albers distanced face.

was

in

twenties-an age when self-obsessiveness

is

this painting

often extreme-yet he approached his ity

Bottrop and con-

in

profile

freedom. The head reads as a complex and convincing

without overlapping along clean-edged boundaries. Albers had his early schooling

rendered the

own

individual-

with that same eye for generalized phenomena that

marks

His attitude at the

his late color exploration.

tinued his education in other towns in the region,

beginning was what

Nordrhein-Westfalen. In 1908 he graduated, at the age

took hold, becoming the one

in

of twenty, from the Lehrerseminar (Teacher's College)

succumbing

sway of what he was

in Biiren,

where

French, musical

had been trained

for three years he

a teacher. His grades

ranged from "sufficient"

harmony and gymnastics, and

in agricultural instruction, history

to "very fairly

good"

made

his first visits to

Munich, where he had

work of Cezanne,

Following

his

museums

his initial, crucial

Matisse, van

same

Hagen and exposure to

Gogh and Gauguin.

teaching elementary school

Westfalian towns and back in Bottrop. Then,

School).

It

himself as an tive oils

in Berlin that

artist.

a

drawings. Farm no.

16

1

),

Woman

the earliest

number of

figura-

drawing

in this

in

some remarkable

with Kerchief,

ca.

experience rather than any kind of biography, or-

worse raphy.

yet, If

from the

artist's

point of view-psychobiog-

Homages were

the

"platters to serve color,"

Albers looks like a soldier to serve

art, his steely

visage

and symmetry. The painting

is

divided into four rather pale color zones, and, even

if

a vehicle for balance

it is

not as abstract and rigorous as the

Square,

it is

as definite in

its

Homages

to the

formal organization.

and downward motion; the sloping shoulders succumb

(some of which have since disappeared)

addition to Russian Box, as well as

a formal visual

in 1913,

he began to think of

He produced

it

Like the Homages, Self-Portrait juxtaposes upward

Konigliche Kunstschule (Royal Art

was

making

small

in

he went to Berlin to study the teaching of art for two years at the

charge rather than

the image, unequivocally,

graduation from Biiren, Albers held a

scries of positions

years later; he

presenting. This self-portrait puts us face to face with

nature studies,

in

to the emotional

fifty

in

conduct, diligence and drawing-

in

would be

as

"good"

precursory of his future strong points. That

year he

the

to

it

1914 (cat.

exhibition,"

shows

to gravity, while the is

in this

way

head

a key to the

abstractions.

later

is

elevated.

With

their

Homages human body

positioned low, the earth

much

upper

as the

internal

squares

are weighted toward the

parts, they, so-to-speak,

clouds. We, too, place our feet lift

The early painting

humanoid character of those

is;

with their ascendant

have their heads

in the

on the ground, and then

ourselves upward, both mentally and physically.

["he

diagonals formed b) the upper comers of the

become arms outstretched

squares within squares

endless reaching thai seems to s.n that there here than meets the eye at

glance.

first

I

his

in

mix

of a

strong earthl) base and a transcendent spirituality kc\ to the fascination of I

all

of Albers's

an

more

is

is

a

work.

in

suggest the serenirj

1915

after a time of restless

home

of going

experimentation.

In st\ le

mk\

content, these drawings of 1915-18 are a particular

who

surprise to those

work. it,

in

In

are familiar onl\ with his later

then essence the) are totally of a piece with

spue of the different nature of the subject matter.

Visuall)

convej their themes with

articulate, the)

minimal, carefull) chosen forms. Most of them

abound

open space.

in

I

here

no

is

neither

clutter:

who

owl

nonartistic

sides at

is

At this time and ever

bay.

after,

Albers opted for a deliberate detachment: from history,

from

artistic trends,

from personal experience. This

cutting off did not pain him; to those well

was

it

clear that his

that mattered to him. alter in

I

life

who knew him

as an artist

he tenor of his

was almost

work

all

did not

response to historical events or fluctuations

m

private or professional relationships. Connections

between the character of

his art

and the

emotional life— the sort of links that lV.isso's \arious artistic phases

and

state of his

exist his

between

shed no more tions of

I

light

on Albers's

art

than on the formula-

instein.

what

the) represent.

The) are also

grace and virtuosity. While bowing slighth direction of certain historical

and contemporar)

Albers kept his sights focused on his

own

full

in

of

the

styles,

objectives.

Dexterous technique and true but economical evocation of the subject matter were of

tance.

The

cat. nos.

paramount impor-

high-spirited drawings of schoolgirls

[6-18

see

are carefree in tone but present \ital

as

ot his startling nocturnal

vital

masses.

all

ot them, white-

he trademarks ot the

I

meticulous attention to the assemblage ot elements alread) shine. So does the almost

what can be taken

What

lite.

m\

reverence tor

stical

with our eyes.

in

curious, considering the qualit)

is

drawings,

that he kept

is

them

While most ot Albers's years were

figurative

all

later

but

all

a

secret

do/en of over

and

he saved them tor posterity,

least

marked

from the

figurative prints

But

show

his

exhibited .md included

the scholars at

ot these

throughout

in

hundred

a

drawings were complete!) unknown, even

folders.

critics

with closest access to his

This exhibition

to

art.

in carefull)

public

is

their

in

Bottrop between

first

ing.

While he was

living

and teaching

1916 and [918, Albers took courses at the Kunstgewer-

beschule School tor Applied Arts

in

nearb) Essen.

He

did several series ot linoleum-cut prints and litho-

graphs

there.

somewhat

They

German

a

art historian

which Albers's

artist's total

discussion

we

denial

to art historians' exacting claims.

111. Gombrich, in

who

writes about

and

FbeSi

Art and Illusion, got to the essence ot

little bit

artists,

Expressionists and Dclaun.n."

Viewpoints range from the

most influences

in a

si

vocabulary was dependent on the work of

Albers specifica II) in

than the draw ings, and

raise the question of the degree to

others.

The

known

have been linked to the work ot main

4

including the

ot

Better

similar to them, the linoleum cuts

earl) visual

But the drawings are not cold. They suggest deep affection tor

minimal

artist-a simplification and intensification of detail,

tumultuous

no bearing. Emotional circumstances

all

force; the ultimate stock) rabbit. In

paper creates the

;,

life— have

as

plump and preening; an imperious

meets us with

publications,'

is

crayon— almost

tew dett gestures of the

from another viewpoint, what psychology there

deliberately sought to keep his

see cat. nos. 7, S, [9-2

Albers's later arrangements ot solid planes -capture

same

who

shoe, a head

bent over a w mint; tablet -with precise articulation. In the drawings of animals

visual confusion nor personal psychology intrude. Or,

that of an artist

wooden

toot sliding out ot a

1

quintessential birds,

he draw ings Albers did after returning from Berlin to

Bottrop

details-.

recently had.

implicit!)

this qiu

"There may have been

ot Zeitgeist there," but the idea ot an often-

mentioned connection of kirchner

And othei

to Expressionism, to the artists,

is

work

"nonsense."

'"

3

Josef Albers

4 Josef Albers

In the Cathedral: Large Middle Nave. 1916

Sand Mine

Linoleum cut on paper, 9V2 x 6"

Linoleum cut on paper, 11% x yVs"

Collection

The Josef Albers Foundation

Collection

I.

1916

The Josef Albers Foundation

whose work seems

Albers inevitably used aspects of the language of his

The

time, but, whatever the slight superficial resemblance

significantly by this time

to the

work

of the Expressionists, he

controlled and far

was

far

more

more personally distanced from

his

artists

to

have affected Albers

were Cezanne and the

Cubists. In his personal chronology,

which he often

rewrote throughout his lifetime, he always

listed as the

response to his subject matter than they. His primary

pivotal event of 1908 his initial encounter with

concerns were with rendering the visual theme and

Cezanne's art

exploring the materials of art.

Gombrich addressed

this

second point as well: "You can submit to materials,

which

is

the ideology of the truth to material.

can display your mastery submit to your

will.

Albers

in

making

knew

Or you

the material 5

both." These prints

are intensely flavored by the tactile possibilities of the

linoleum

gouge-we

practically feel the tool cutting

1

9 15 he

in the

Folkwang Museum

had seen Cubist works

in

Hagen. By

in Berlin as well as

through reproduction. From then on Albers took a new

approach to the presentation of so-called

reality

and

used planes to suggest movement. The technique of a ca.

1917 self-portrait drawing preparatory to a litho-

graph

(cat.

no.

15)

distinctly

reflects

Cezanne's

works and Cubist methods. Having sketched

the right

through -as well as by the rich ink coverage. But the

profile,

means

point of his lithographic crayon, Albers then used

are always in service of the neutral rendering of

the subject matter: mine, nave or head.

[8

mouth, eyes and a few other details with the its

side to construct, very subtly, a sequence of adjacent

planes thai describe most oi the subject, ig<

\

nous planar movement and the use

to define mass. pleter) legible.

he

would be exploring a

artisi

dynamic interaction

<

portrait also

shows one

Seurat's drawings

knew them

at this

s

com-

is

illusion-

his selt-

I

the salient features oi

ol

although

spaa

years Liter in both the

fift)

and the Homages.

onstellations

is

similarly

and

ol the picture plane

ar\ three-dimensional space

Structural

oi blank

he lab) rinthine composition

I

I

["here

not

is

it

likel) thai

Albers

time, even in reproduction -the use

of the ridges ol the laid paper to enrich, and give mysterj

As

expanses.

to, the graj

was

teacher Albers

a

"maximum

effect

from

early lithographs

and

that.

large print

\

emphasize the value

to

minimum means." Some related

tor a series oi lithographs illustrating the //'(

tale

nom)

oi

Green Flute

cat. nos.

2.7-29

means, the combination

Ubers's

later,

abstract work.

see

[931-33

tig.

5).

This

concentration,

exuberance and

ol

OddK

oi the best

enough, the)

not a case oi

is

development or influence, but, rives:

have the eco

Dance Movement drawings

also anticipate Matisse's oi

just

ca. [917

hinese folk

(.

movement

restraint, a\\^\ the gentle, tlow ing oi

oi the

drawings achieve

and two stud) draw ingsol

<>t

a direet

n

I

lenn Matisse

Dance Movement. Pencil

on paper,

Private C ollecrion

rather, ot shared objec

life

oi line.

Albers's art. So

Ca.

for the

Workers' Houses lithographs oi

see cat. nos.

[917

are equall)

[I-13

tree

and

convincing. With a sure sense of what to do and, almost as important, oi deft strokes

what not

I

even one's

emerges

spit

it

a

tew

on

its

side to capture the

their

own,

tor us. Albers used to claim that

was black

lithographic crayon

become

and road. That eye

expanses

ol

itself.

make

sk\

the mdi\ idual

and

it

ot colors that matters

components,

is

a ke\ to all

of

is

subject that, like a

brown hue, through

his

showing the

is

am

sense ot

it— he gave to

it

his ability to flat

impart

a

charm

appealing. Perhaps

remarkable neutrality— he was, sort ot

until that point, yet

lite

his

a certain lightness. streets

has to

all,

we have no

connection with

Hewasexactl)

and buildings were,

^.Ui

with the

inexplicable sense of things.

It

is

faithful

yet at the

same time he transformed them. What might I

after

grim neighborhood where he had

details ot his personal

what those

to a

undifferentiated square or a dull

not necessaril)

spent most ot his

entices.

and buildings

tor context, the recognition that

the juxtaposition of tonus

more than

there; the the snot

these sweeps ot crayon are trcc-w heeling

abstractions. In contexi the)

is

made

he lower middle-class neighborhood oi a bleak

industrial city

On

to do, Albers

with the point oi his lithographic crayon

and dragged and twisted street.

;i

simultaneous articulation and

a

reductiveness, the restless

The drawings

1931

1

depress,

artist's special

as

it

and

his deliberate

distance and sturd) control oi his situation— here as the later geometric abstractions

him

directl)

in

m

and color work-put

touch with an enchantment hidden to

others.

19

Easy- to know

39). In a loose

diamonds-are precious

that

good- to

While he was

learn

more— to

drawings are the work of deeply in the mountain

6

J.A.

918,

when World War

to travel.

ended, Albers had a chance

1

He made drawings in some of the small towns

was

new

Wiirzburg, and

of

in

one case

in the Sauerland, the region

his family originated

Pine Forest in Sauerland

The

careful drawings.

the distant

and

(cat.

his

no.

grandmother

3 3

)

is

background

are

equals light;

art.

and between

leaves

on the

his

work.

And

far.

own. Here

void.

It is

would

He would play them against one on

both matter and

the basis of a living world that

is

.

.

.

threw

my old things out the

all

was

the best step I

made

my

in

life.

tree trunks

forest floor. Albers

their interaction creates

was thirty-two

window, started once more from the bottom. That

white

another, and allow each to perform in fullest force its

time

new people and a radically different form From here, he might go anywhere.

larger

respond to the different voices of black and white throughout

so, that in little

n

and white have

becomes dappled sunlight on

it

The Bottroper gone south

So much

one of his most

opened up with

near and

build-

place,

/

telling roles in distinguishing

void.

and

lived.

dense, short strokes that form

intervals in the foreground: black

mass and

feeling his power.

hills

he would have no problem giving everything up for a

of the Miinsterland (see cat. no. 32), in Cologne and

where

air

man who was breathing and who had the ability to

a

turn the free sweeps of his brush into ings, into

1

Munich, Albers made some

living in

of Mittenwald (see cat. nos. 34, 35). These exuberant

see

that pebbles-are miraculous.

In

he could articulate the

free style,

brush and ink views of the Bavarian mountain town

that rubies-have depth

hut

and

curves with total accuracy.

at

once airy

In

Munich Albers saw

describing the

the simple four-page pamphlet

new Bauhaus

pamphlet had on

school in Weimar.

The

cover a woodcut by Lyonel

its

Feininger of a Gothic cathedral that symbolized the integration of

all

the arts,

and

a statement

by Walter

Gropius, the founding director of the school, stressing proficiency in craft. Albers quickly arranged funding

and succoring.

from the regional teaching system of NordrheinIn 1919 Albers

went

to

Munich,

to study at the Konig-

Akademie der Bildenden Kunst (The

liche Bayerische

Royal Bavarian Academy of Pictorial Art).

What

Doerner.

He

gave

little

credit to his study of

painting and drawing with Franz von Stuck, with

whom Vasily

his future

Bauhaus confreres Paul Klee and

Kandinsky had worked over a decade

disliked Stuck's practice of having students

the figure,

which

they called

$7,000

draw from

me

of naked

to teach at Yale,

girls to I

draw.

saved them

drawings of nudes

He knew how to get the life and twist when to stop (see cat. nos. 37-

of the torso, and

11

in front

a year for models.") Yet his

are impressive.

He

as a teacher he eventually disavowed.

("They teach them

When

earlier.

headed

to

was

still

affiliated,

and

Weimar.

he

valued was the painting technique class he took with

Max

Westfalen, with which he

He had

been a hometown schoolteacher and

spare time a figurative

artist;

even

chance to break away to the big

in his

when he had

cities to

study

art,

the

he

had worked within the accepted mode of representation.

Suddenly he was an abstract

nothing he wouldn't

and the

possibilities

try.

He was

artist.

There was

in a different orbit,

were endless.

Albers arrived at the Bauhaus in 1920, a year after the

school had been founded.

Once

there, he

assembled

broken glass shards to extract a radical and beauty from them. in

He

sharp geometry to

juxtaposed

make

flat

startling

planes of

furniture that

was

wood boldly

and toughl) functional. !•

1

assembled .is

wot

tessau, he bent

i

could be

simple and elegant

.is

designed an alphabet as

German

works

breath

artist's

dissonance," reveals finesse

and

When

he

art

a horse

I

sandblasted

le

no reference w hatsoever to the known

ith

world, but with

power and energ)

.1

bent metal into

howls and

fruit

look new

still

and buggy.

smoothness and radiant tones,

ike

w

script as the

vcars

sixt)

[<

I

whose

tea glasses

Dessau and

Liter. In

Bauhaus moved

Berlin after the

own.

its

all

there, he taught

unprecedented approach to form and the

an

possibilities

lian. all

danced

le

1

the festivals.

at

with

over, e\entuall\

ot the century.

woman

1

some w

love

le tell in

from her childhood world

hound I

as he

he stor)

|oset

ot

Vlbers

from 1920

much

had from

ith

young

a

comfortable, tradition

own

time ot

past.

its

told repeatedly.

anyone elsein

[9

;

;.

1

low

and achievement ot

in

And how much was

realized because ot the school

itself— is impossible to determine.

What

is

dear,

how-

that as radical as his break was, he did not

is

really, as

he claims, throw even thine out the window.

Nietzsche wrote, "It his typical

a

man

has character, he has also

experience, which always recurs."

Vs

at

the

Bauhaus he continued along the same path. From rhe start

he had played

flat

planes against illusions ot three-

dimensional space; now he explored that dev

ice in

new

wavs. lie had previousl) succumbed to the enchant-

ment gated

ot the hl.uk it

further,

subject matter.

It

mav w

hite

spectrum; now he mvesti-

abandoning the encumbran< /

he Green Flute and other earh

Bauhaus years

also

himself And exalts technical

harmony.

arrived at the Bauhaus, Albers could

first

Documents

the

in

town

hall

stress

appeal to the regional teaching system to keep up his funding.

1

would

le

after just a bit

periodicall) assure the officials that

more

Bauhaus he would

training at the

return to his schoolteaching in Bottrop— a promise he

had no intention

of keeping.

he duress that

I

might have been the dominant theme ot another man's

became

Arx

source ot beauty

a

in Albers's.

pav tor paints and canvas, he went to the

not tar from the

Weimar Bauhaus, pickaxe

rucksack on his back.

He

that he assembled into

works of

balanced compositions that

and

see cat. nos. 40-

art

And

light— the

penetrates the colors

much

medium

care into

up ongoing rhythms

set

lacked

the)

when

rook on the

the) lav

onh imparting luminosity mood. Years

upbeat, positive

on the

ever dear to theartist-

in hill force.

That

light functions

draw

as rhe copious blank spaces of rhe earh

do, not

The

jewels.

interplay. Resurrected, the elements

and dynamism

lite

hand and

in

now arranged with

discards of others were

to

returned with glass shards

What had been garbage became

.

Unable

town dump

ings

but also creating An

later,

the

in

Horn

Albers would prime his panels with six to ten coats ot

white gesso to create

light ot the

and generous ground

that

same

sort, a neutral

1

draftsman Albers had alread) chosen to avoid orna-

ment and use the most economical means;

man

of the

Bottrop give voice to his extreme financial

ground.

on what was intrinsic to Albers

isual

v

work

during those earh vears. lime And again he had to

4;

closing

ot his creative evolution

those years depended

ever,

And married

there tor longer than

until the

friends from

departed as radically

Bauhaus has been

the

was

his

made

ot the artistic pioneers

who had

from Berlin

le

1

young Westfa-

ot his tat her- in- law

barel) perceptible-bel canto, without

Albers's

scarcel) afford materials.

clearly

he Bauhaus opened new worlds to the

is

of the

little

ot materials.

I

Georges Duthuit said

are, as

Henri Matisse's drawings, "mirrors on which the

new

from

Bauhaus were from

m

He

ir.ulitioii.il

glass to mi

making

Bauhaus moved

to create chairs thai

from the [unkers factor) near the Dessau

different

aircraft

ater, after the

minutes and were

in

were portable.

the)

shapes

1

id

themselves

I

I

could not

ignoring the aJ\ in the

to

told Albers he

show

had

to studv wall

At the vnd of his second semester,

le refused.

Gropius "reminded that

colors to

freely.

The Bauhaus masters painting.

would allow

me

stav ice of

several times, as

at the

nn

Bauhaus

it

was I

his duty,

persisted in

teachers to engage

first

of

all

wall-painting class." Albers, however, continued

work with

bottle shards

on

flattened tin cans

and

11

showed diem

wire screens, and tion of his felt

work

in the

end of the second semester.

at the

my show would be my swan song

that

Bauhaus.... But soon thereafter

my me to

Thus suddenly

was not long windows." for the

4

up

set

new

a

got

I

before

first,

that

could

I

Bauhaus and, secondly,

studies at the

continue

"I

at the

received a letter from

I

the Masters' Council informing me,

asking

required exhibi-

workshop

glass

my own

for them.

workshop and

glass

it

started to get orders for glass

I

Between 1922 and 1924 he did windows

Bauhaus

director's office in

Weimar, the Otte

and Sommerfeld houses-both designed by Gropius-

Museum

in Berlin, the Grassi

House

Ullstein Publishing

during World

War II,

Leipzig and the

Berlin. All destroyed

in

windows

the only records of these

today are photographs

and highly charged, vivid sense of the

in

their designs

new

Vibrant

(see cat. no. 45A,b).

must have added a

or

less

has a

for the

drawn

Albers soon organized his glass

Mounted 10

geometry. Grid

and systematization,

work with

his practical

absorption

means of making some-

effective

happen-here the creation of vigorous movement

His

results.

foray into the effects of pure,

first

unmodulated color-and

most

his

carefully

flat,

planned

composition to date- it richly anticipates the Homages that

came some

thirty years later. This

earliest assertion that he

is

Albers's

valued squares in and of

themselves.

new awareness

Albers's

of his

own preferences contrib-

utes to the quality of jubilation in the piece.

had thrown himself

The

artist

making of Grid Mounted

into the

with the eagerness of one

who had found

Having discovered

what delighted him was

breathe

life

into

the grid,

it.

full

his

way. to

an ordered, regular world his

In

imagination was boundless; those tied

to the structures they graced.

to regularity

most

through color juxtapositions-he achieved eloquent

of color are Increasingly

With

celestial radiance.

and eye thing

Mounted

than a tradesman's selling tools, Grid

down

squares

of surprises, totally free-spirited

How

without ever violating their boundaries. Albers himself, especially as he

was

later in

life:

like

the

a rigorous

ultimate law-abiding, tax-paying, good citizen, his

of 1922 (cat. no. 44)

lawn neatly mowed,

his bills

promptly paid,

who never

depends, obviously enough, on a grid. Later he would hesitated, while obeying the rules, to dare the outra-

elaborate on the grid in myriad ways, using basis for highly refined compositions.

it

as the

geous. Grid

But here

it

Mounted

is

euphoria within the confines

is

of structure. plain

and simple, with the resultant motion up and

down and

left

and

right.

Albers had incorporated a

Sommerfeld house window;

checkerboard within

his

now

sufficient

the motif

Mounted, he

was

filed

unto

itself.

For Grid

down glassmakers' samples to small,

uniform squares which he bound together with

copper wire within a heavy iron

fine

grill.

hooked

rugs.

The Cubists had employed

the early teens

in

American nineteenth-century

in

and Johannes

Itten

the motif in

had used

it

as a

teaching tool in the Bauhaus Vorkurs (preliminary course) between 19 19 and 192

}.

Klee

was

to explore

it

extensively later in the decade. In any event, Albers's

checkerboard has

its

own

alchemy.

and technique, with the underlying

Up

Bauhaus moved

a master.

to be so elevated.

front in material

units nothing

more

to Dessau, Albers

He was among

the

hand

in

life.

In

in glass,

practical

workmanship

Weimar,

whom in

he was

addition to

to basic-design students.

He

these activities in Dessau. Eventually he

became head of the preliminary course and the furniture

in a

he had made furniture and taught

working

all

students

marriage of Annelise

Fleischmann, the weaving student with

continued

first

The appointment put him

position to ask for the

to share the rest of his

Checkerboards come and go as themes. They recur ancient art and

In 1925, after the

was made

director of

workshop; he also explored metalwork

and graphic design. It

was

art

in the

medium

of glass, however, that Albers's

was developing most

fully.

By 1926 he had turned

completely from assembling shards and fragments to

He invented

using Hashed glass. sandblasting layers of

Bashed— together 96, " s

.

99

He

.

opaque

in

.1

second

col<

>r:

On

in

<<^

artist's

hand

top of

hair-thin layer o( glass

.1

I

.1

aii

Mower

to

remove

After removing the

he generally added another color with paint

often a glass painter's black iron oxide

baked the

entire piece

permanent.

see tor

a

make

kiln to

would

he

the paint

example

reveal the milk-glass back-

cat. nos. -

time would dull

tor a shorter

produce

a

finally

here were variations on the process.

I

Intense sandblasting

ground

m

.

dark mas

a

>iS

;.

sandblasting

;

top layer of black to

see cat. no. 95

.

Sometimes Albers

used more than one stencil on a single work.

Much

as he

would when he painted

the \,j:un\ the artist thrived

and

the possibilities of the

ot

wa\

that stressed the links

ised for

was working on

the

between the two bodies possibilities

.ire

\er\

But the unusual color intensity, the purest

white and deepest black and the necessar) preciseness as well as the flatness of the design elements otter an

unusual and particular material and form effect." glass he

made

In

another, adding or deleting Onlj one or

two elements

m

rhythm and

movement

make

see cat. nos.

the multiple uses of the

variations

69 72

same

.

His careful probing of Stencil

elements

led to

subtle vet bold permutations. I

he sandblasting

method enabled Albers

once the school moved

in

still

there.

maximal mtensirv and sheen, lake

substances.

and

hat quality and fineness ot material

I

emphasize the elevated status of

"Instead ot using

art.

colored glass to decorate, to create atmosphere, or to

God, Albers

praise

and

light,

from the

isolated color

from

glass

exalting color,

It

>>t

was one thing

to use transparent glass tor a stained-glass

window

effects

architectural context, thus

its

man and machine.""

church

tor St. Michael's

window

to

had made such

serve the idea ot holiness- Albers in

Bottrop

a

[916-

in

but to use this even bolder sort ot multilavered glass

was

abstract art

foi

abstraction

and

radical departure.

a

confident

into

materiality.

It

fixed

It

gave

detachment he preferred and which he considered

a

par with religious

ot careful premeditation

and

marvelous and mysterious

exacting execution

in

substance generall)

used to treat miraculous events,

a

the process of light passing through glass long having

been seen as an analogue to the Immaculate

and hoi) radiance

rion

in

w

ith

off

the

milk-glass.

It is,

a striking qualit)

in tact, a light reflected

an opaque surface that gives the illusion of being

light

in

opaque

oncep-

(.

general.

Albers was able to achieve light ot

shining through a translucent medium.

mam

the

reahtv

light it

source

is

We

feel

as

behind the object, whereas

comes from

the side that

we

are

on

although back lighting can be an important secondary source pices.

.

Albers outdid nature

He

and he made from

in

these flashed-glass

used opaque glass to create an apparent

translucenc) to achieve the

were put on

solids

-deemed worth)

imager)

constructions ver) dosel) related to one

to

commercial

pristine— and at a remove from everyda) textures and

it

line or color

in a

Bauhaus was

the

cut icvvels, the glass constructions are both radiant

lines

the glass constructions

work. "The color and form

limited.

Ho

program he had de\

Homages, he reminisced about

sometimes did

heightened status to nonobjective form. Interlocking

on both the limitations

himself. In America, at the time he

in a

the

them made

when

Leipzig

ottered

than would have been possible to achieve through

evident. Albers

studio and had

The medium

a

Sandblasting enabled him to obtain sharper contours

stencil,

in his

workshop— in

in Berlin

surface that the stencil allowed to remain exposed

chemical treatment with acids.

them

Dessau, and

the areas ol the

all

nowhere

a

from blotting paper; then he sandblasted with compressed

he

is

not even execute the pieces himself. Rather, he designed

stencil cut

blowing the glass

bj

AJbers placed

it

74,

opaque, pure

ol

and form,

the painted parts ot these compositions, the

excepi

red, yellow, black, blue or gray.

from color was melted on second rime.

stun

requisite tor the optimal functioning of color

fused— or

55-60, 62-66,

sec cat. nos. started with a

white milk-glass coated with

technique tor

a

glass thai were

more powerful than reflected light

a direst sou-

actual translucency,

appear to be

light

coming

This tion

the sort of artifice he later explored in Interac-

is

book he published

of Color, the

1963 which has

in

influenced the study of art throughout the world. For centuries artists

had

capture the truth of

appearance

its

in

forms as various

painting or the fragmented impasto of Impressionism.

Albers admired the ability of these earlier artists to control the appearance of light effects

However,

illusions of luminosity.

his

and

to create

concern was not

faithfulness to nature but rather the taking of matter

into his

own hands and making something happen

art that

would not occur

results

is

in

in reality.

a deliberate

The

flat

Still

and Russian Constructivism. De

air;

Theo van Doesburg

Albers, however,

away

right

manmade,

colors

and

as distinctly

nos. 64-66) -made with identical stencils

on

glass-have textures and color

tones unlike any in nature or, for that matter, earlier art.

This

is

deliberate fiction, based

technology. Like the

Homages

so blatantly dependent

on the

the

most modern

much

as

it

latest

to the Square which are

on manufacturers' paints and

machine-made panels and were developed tory-like conditions,

in labora-

extols the unique capabilities of

artistic

Stijl

right angles.

was

It

for

ter...

we

never joined."

1-

methods. The

artist

has taken

control as possible. In the earlier glass work,

was

clearly not averse to using straight lines

much

light that passes

through

the artist has really taken the helm; nothing

alter; little

subject to chance.

is

Picasso's Cubist collages, Schwitters's

Dada group

the achievements of the

inherent vagaries of

human

life

me

just

and

right

art

other geometric abstraction with which his

Braque's and

If

Merz all

pieces

and

reflected the

and depended

to an

like

own

has been erroneously linked, limited to the point of

the time,

A

closer connection

work Albers

and

whom

is

Mondrian,

was acquainted

certainly

he came to

to Piet

know

at

personally in

America, where he invited him to exhibit at Black

Mountain

College. Mondrian's idea of "the living

rhythm" achieved by

a balance of properly propor-

tioned lines and angles pertains to the Albers's art

series of the late

Homages. So does is

range of

1940s and early 1950s and the his

notion that "abiding equilibrium

achieved through opposition and

straight line (limit of the plastic

opposition,

full

from the glass works through the Variant

expressed by the

means) 1

i.e.

is

the right angle."'

in

its

but he adhered to some of

its

principal

Albers never used

tions,

can

just

There was some resemblance

and the changing nature of the

now

on

between van Doesburg's and Albers's work-Albers

the term Neo-Plasticism in reference to his

But

in the

"We had

admirers.

variables are at play in the irregularities of found glass

it.

was

mechanical decoration. So we came apart... no, bet-

with whose

different types of layered

was not one of his

and

straight lines

arrangements of carefully ruled and premeditated shapes. His three versions of Skyscrapers of 1925 to

De

lectured at the Bauhaus.

a clash... that cruel insistence

being empty.

(cat.

manmade,

planes of the glass constructions relate to

invented and unrelated to the natural world as the

1929

possibilities of a

angles- but he found van Doesburg's paintings,

The

artificiality-.

light quality are as explicitly

and triumphant

premeditated harmony.

tried to render light accurately, to

as the mirror-like surfaces of sixteenth-century Flemish

What

the unique

own

ambi-

tenets, like the idea

that "to be concerned exclusively with relations, while

creating

them and seeking

in life, that

is

the

their equilibrium in art

good work of today, and that

prepare the future."

14

and is

to

Those who knew Albers may

question the perfection of his personal relationships

overwhelming degree on the element of chance, Albers

he did not exactly thrive on their inevitable variables-

and many of

but time and again he claimed the link between moral

his

Bauhaus confreres wished

their control over their

to assert

environment. Rather than

assemble industrial detritus, they developed industrial processes for their

own

ends.

With

the

magic of

angles and a carefully organized geometry, they

M

right

show

behavior and the attributes of his his art as representing

an

own work. He saw

ideal for the integration of

the individual in society both in

its

tone and

in the

simultaneous independence and interdependence of

its

tonus and colors.

I

Mondrian's view trasting

would have subscribed

le surel)

through

thai "Equilibrium,

t<>

diverse

economic backgrounds came from the same

con-

place. Albers's master) of the abstract

indi-

Stepping stone:

first

America where

eased his transition to a new societ)

viduals as particular personalities."

lb be neutral

making him

it

at

the Bauhaus,

rather than subjective, to voice universal truths rather

bv

than person. il experience, vvas of pivotal importance

him

to both artists.

ing ot himself from his past,

instantl) a hero,

The sandblasted

on the

glass constructions arc based

kind of planning and preparation that would mark

work from then

and where I

it

in

later led

he distanc-

mk\ subsequent turning

was

his

to

means

work, appropriately, looks

ot achieving freedom. The like

his

and then

to considerable financial well-being.

.m unprecedented vision .\nd methods,

Mlvrs's

idiom was

.1

and neutralizing opposition, annihilates

au awakening.

on. Never again did he allow

spontaneity comparable to that of his early drawings to

appear

in a

work,

finished

interpretations of this development. afraid of his emotions the allegedl) cool art

is

)ne

(

sensuality.

.\n<.\

as

two

["here are

of

tull

is

that he

he other

I

/;; ./

possible

is

was

what

is

so indispensable as the sides, the

and

the nijstr Yet they jII have such j graceful appear-

that

ance that they appear to have been invented not

as the figurative

life

ship,

hold, the hoic. the stern, the yards, the sails

only for the purpose 0/ safety hut also for the sake

pieces.

of giving pleasure. \\

hat

is

certain

is

that

from 14:0 on Albers wanted

his i<

(

work

free of reference to earthly

exception to regarded

this

this

is

it

photography, but he apparent!)

separate from the

.is

he never showed that

his

it

be included

of his art since

rest

to others, referred to in

exhibitions or

in

or suggested

it

publications.

In

even the earliest pre-Bauhaus draw ings, he had avoided the extraneous in favor of refinement tion;

now he went

further

and generalized form.

and tow aid the

It

in his

was

a

1

ro 16

The only possible

life.

and

embrace

simplifica-

of limitations

move toward

absolutes,

Albers's achievement in furniture design, typography,

architecture

machine

and metalwork

dependent on the

aesthetic as are the glass works.

the cleanly

honed edges and

flashed-glass constructions.

to

as

is

one another

in

flat

Here too are

smooth planes

of the

Geometric forms respond

precise arrangement. Aesthetic

decisions seem to have been the result of a careful studv ot the technical possibilities ot the material.

The)

derive from formal invention rather than from any

eternal.

reference to the natural world or organic structures.

The fundamental character ot Albers's

constant and invincible, but

methods from iy:oon were ric

in

appearance and

its

Geomet-

a total departure.

w

ith

the Bauhaus. lie

had come from

a

pletely,

before

he had to .is

j.n c

up

as

much

mni-

what he had been

ot

he could. By taking up the new credo, and

revealing nothing ot his personal experience, he

possible tor the

new world

ot the

Bauhaus

fh rough abstraction, people from

all

made

to be his.

over

.\n\.\

in

other disciplines it

Albers

is

less

nevertheless has

worked

in

innovative than the its

striking qualities.

the current vernacular

in

provincial it

The work

glass pieces, but Essentiall)

the leap signified bv his entire experience

working-class background; to break from

it

wavs

abstraction represented a total change for Albers,

ke< ping

of

was

art

ot

stv le in

these realms, contributing to

simplicity, purpose and

scale.

In

it

his

ow

n eve tor

view of what the

people around him were doing, his accomplishment

in

typography, furniture, metalwork and architecture

is

not startling!) original;

it

does, however, represent

considerable refinement of the contemporan idiom. There were three periods sivelv

in

which he worked exten-

with furniture: 1922-2^, 1926 and 1928-29.

In

Weimar

made

1922-23, he

in

magazine shelves and

the

shown

conference table, since destroyed, that are

photographs

this exhibition in vintage

room

The

and

table

and

furniture of the preceding

two

years.

The

voids have a

which elemental shapes embrace and

respond to one another clearly betrays the painter's eye.

And

the pieces that he designed around 1926 for

the Berlin apartment of his

and Anni's

and Anno Moellenhoff

Drs. Fritz

sitions of

The

his chair of

juxtapo-

1929

no. 76).

(cat.

It

'

into a tidy flat

box

best

is

and dismantled and

for shipping.

wood-veneers

These pieces

that

had been

molded around matrixes and glued -were

as thick as

of bent laminated

they were wide. Over the years

claims have been the ture

made

and that the way

together

was

original.

1.

it

wood

chairs.

was

in

it

furni-

Perhaps because Albers was a

and painting, people

equally pioneering as a designer of

other designers had already

laminates, and

represented

modern

However Heinz and Bodo Rasch,

mann and

grandiose

came apart and went back

true innovator in the fields of glass

believed he

fairly

for this chair: that

use of laminated bent

first

some

knock-down

chairs

Josef Hof-

worked

in

bent

had been made, and

sold through catalogues, since the mid-nineteenth century. In

form Albers's chair was very similar

to ones

made between 1924 and 1928 by Erich Dieckmann and to some of the tubular steel designs popular at that time. is

What does distinguish Albers's knock-down chair

the subtlety of

its

proportions and the perpetual flow

modulated

of

its

A

chair design of the preceding year (cat. no. 75)

gracefully

right angles.

incorporates large squares, albeit with rounded corn-

16

and dark woods

light

its

quite elegant. Sitting in

of Albers's attitudes toward

it,

we

We

life.

ready to read attentively or talk

tough or hostile-the seat

smooth -but

it

will

think of

We

The

have an

chair

cushioned, the

is

many

are held upright,

alertly.

impression of firmness, of definition.

is

not

wood

not allow us to slouch. While the

supporting elements give essential structure, a cantilever causes a slight oscillation; the result

of Albers's work, the chair

is

is

that like

most

steady yet vibrant, ground-

ed yet floating-at once earthly and In furniture as in glass, Albers

fanciful.

moved from

largely

following the dictates of the material to manipulating it

known is was made of units

which Albers

that could readily be assembled fit

in their

forms and materials.

furniture design for

could

nos. 53, 54) are

(cat.

wonderfully inventive and surprising

close friends

paid extended homage.

later

it

some degree Marcel

early affinity

relationships give the object a

makes

their sureness of form.

in

The simple forms and

shows Albers's

it

outside Gropius's office.

sculptural richness. Planes interlock in crisp rhythm.

The way

Grid Mounted

form to which he

and the contrast of

Yet Albers's designs are distinctive in both their relative airiness

for the

purity,

shelves resemble to

Bauhaus

Breuer's

46,

ers; like

some pew-like

47). Albers designed them, along with seats, for the reception

(cat. nos.

in

to suit his will. In the

furniture designs the

first

dimensions of the available lumber, bottle fragments in the

hand.

But

He

Weimar dump, had

broken

the upper

arranged, rather than transformed, them.

he bent and molded

in the later chairs

much

like the

same way

the

wood

in

that he sandblasted multilayered

glass, respecting the intrinsic properties of the material

but taking charge of

new way. The

in a

it

toward material that he had developed disciplines

work

forever after.

The Homages

honor paints

straight

listed

with the manufacturer's

panel in a

in these

two

by the end of the 1920s was to characterize

explicitly

his

attitude

way

that

to the Square

from the tube, each

name on

the back of the

shows unusual reverence

for the

tools of the trade. Yet despite this meticulous listing

and the almost paints in the ical: it

is

they

scientific

method of

application, the

Homages seem incorporeal and metaphys-

become

light,

atmosphere, mood. Ironically,

the apparently methodical application of the

medium

that facilitates the attainment of this spiritual

quality. Albers felt that to revel in impasto, to

emphasized

and

his

own

physicality

and personal

been detrimental to the expression of the

and other-worldly dimension. ture,

succumb

medium, would have

to the sensual properties of the

feelings

cosmic

Similarly, in his furni-

he polished that plain, uncarved wood, and

avoided blemishes and accidents, to create form that

same time

seems almost ethereal wink- at the

offering

considerable physical comfort.

Ubers used K)(

.1

cat. nos. 92, 9

three different

;

known attempt

Although

.

on

have

room

jchibition

in

floor of the

in

Berlin.

that

for that exhibition.

day, but with

form.

And

on the

it

its

It

I

ow

1

for cat.

Mies

m

that the letters

wall, Albers

wonders wh) I

had placed

visitors

this

is

.1

ol the

and unknown

Building

Kohe

built

typograph) and

done

in Berlin,

side ol the artist.

and has an appealing

cal

(

1

>t

were

mto which

concavities

might

wav

caretullv

lis

I

leaves,

worked out

no upward facing

snow or other elements

addition there were openings to facilitate

In

tall.

drainage.

was

goal

to

outsmart nature.

One

big cit) hotels.

in

built in rhe area

point to a fascinating

We know

\er\

little

in

nos. 4S, 49A,B

.

In

is

no record

[926,

was very similar to one

something out

known

It

text

I

and elegant than forms

m

thanks

their predecessors,

more graceful proportion.

the delicate juxtaposition ot absolute!) minimal fruit

bowl

especiall) striking.

he shop designs look,

At the Bauhaus Albers had continued his technical

he) have

explorations and further refined his eve. Eloquence and

<>t

the future.

I

is

unfortunate that

we have no

except tor the lettering tor then simis, which the alphabet Albers designed in

[926

is

from

specificall)

tor

use.

binationsschrift"

form. His tea glasses are more

citing

record ol their actual plan and the technical details,

hat alphabet,

broadened and

them other than

tor tradition, that characterized the

Berlin of then epoch.

M. Krajewski and W.

Bauhaus

the chair, Albers

b)

in

had been made three

years earlier at the

the

the adventUTOUSness .\nd imagination, as well as the total disregard

that

designed

window shoppers should be

both attracted and protected. like

ebon) handle

flat

he shops were

and an accompanying

Albers's intention that

cat.

stainless-steel

a thin glass vessel, the tea glass,

elements makes the the reproductions

tea glasses

shun

Tumpel. As with

And ol

bowl and

use of a

training element with a simple

to their use of fewer I

its

men who

sister of the

the large publishing house.

fruit

ol

restrained

daughter and

never built, And there

I

not

aesthetic unity. Albers later

outdoor use";"" he had

tor

Anni Albers's mother

)ffset .\n^\ that

Ullstein, the

outdoor

is

unusually practi-

it is

the arrangements so that there were

simplified a

1927 publication

even today,

While the design

stencil lettering-

Albers also designed a ol the cit)

about them, except that they were reproduced

owned

required.

of the

in a

could find their way.

not always

Kurfurstendamm

was an

and combinations

and thus

rhe voice ol the

map

shop designs, meant to be

llstem

was

he

complete!) unique— it relates closel) to other Bauhaus

supporting he

that

all

I

were easv to construct; ten types

of pieces-circles, rectangles

two-were

units.

that did not collect dust or water or both,

and openness

n fine proportions

is

mg

explained that "these forms were combined

der

\ .111

he room spoke

result

of underlv

included one particular!) ingenious touch:

Berlin, so that

I

minimum

designed

le

I

was assembled on the second iul\\ ig

rectangles. Here, as in his

the literature

[931 Bauausstellung

for the

house

1926

ol

Company

the artist or in an) ol his exhibitions.

the hotel I

drawing

now appeared

until

1930s,

the earlj

for the Ullstein Publishing

nos. ^1,^1

space

at

was reproduced

it

m

publications

neither this design nor Albers's

two shops

hotel living

.1

and

circles

himself to the bare

design tor

im that represented his one

planning

m

his chairs in

permutations of

chair designs and his later painting, he restricted

simplicity of his

work

also

composition are consistent!) apparent

of the period. But

immersed himself

in visual

mischief. For example,

transparent -a

he pursued the creation of illusor)

theme he would

treat in Interaction 0/

such as Flying, [931

in

around the vear 19^0 he

cat. no.

94

,

(

Him.

In

works

he gave the false

impression that forms overlapped and that one was

which Albers called cat. no.

N

,

was based

his

"Kom-

enrirel)

on

visible

through the other.

precise tone that

He

did this b) finding the

would have been created

it

these

-"

shapes were transparent and superimposed.

It

thrilled

color composition -uses three solid colors to achieve

the artist to find that art provided experiences that

the impression of

nature could not

tion

offer.

more than

shows the enormous

This glass construc-

three.

that Albers could wrest

life

Albers also developed forms with multiple, apparently

from three colors and simple forms, and the richness

contradictory readings. Two-dimensional imagery

with which he could imbue black, white and grav.

offered possibilities reality,

unknown

three-dimensional

in

and so we get the ambiguous cylinders of Rolled

Wrongly, 19

no. 98),

31 (cat.

and the complex interplay

of the flashed-glass piece Steps of the same year

(cat.

no. 96). In Steps, the larger steps to the right clearly

move upward and away smaller steps

in

appear to recede upward to the

first

upward

then

foil

and then

to the right,

one direction and

ment

to the right; however, the

reverse.

With

to

left,

go up half way

move-

their distinct

in a single direction, the large steps are

an

effective

more ambiguous course of the smaller ones.

to the

That image of the smaller

steps, related to

both Gestalt

psychology and the art of M.C. Escher, would always

remain important for Albers. Believing that the original

had been destroyed

glass construction

Germany, he re-created reproduced

it

in oil in

after

he

left

1935, and had

it

in screenprint in his retrospective portfolio

Formulation: Articulation

in

1972.

The many

possible

readings of the left-hand flight of stairs continued to

and he repeatedly republished

fascinate him,

ing about

it.

Steps

is

included in

much

his writ-

of the literature

on Albers, generally with the information that the original glass construction

has

now

tion.

21

reemerged, and

Many

Albers continued to investigate the black-gray-white

spectrum

1935

in

some of

the Treble Clef works of 1932 to

The forms

(see cat. nos. 100-105).

in

motion and direction

all

change according to the

placement of monochromatic tones. At around the

same time Klee and latter's

The

works

Picasso, in such

Workshop

Milliner's

(fig.

exploring the effects of light and dark hues

different

way

in his

this

spectrum

photographs and photo-collages Dexterous and unerring

(see cat. nos. 77-91).

another medium, he manipulated powerfully and articulately

graphs are rich

in linear

in these

ings,

which Albers revealed

drawings and

prints.

and representa-

in his earlier paint-

~~

is

included in this exhibi-

many

At the Bauhaus Albers formed

versions. For one, the chameleon-like

was

more

tion than in the other original

is

remarkable

sheen of the

jet

life

of the smaller

effective in the glass construc-

mediums.

In addition, the

in its textural variations:

the

black plays against the slightly pebbled

surface of the more matte, grayer black; that lighter black, while carefully

viewed close up, white bloom

full

is

when

his

shared an abiding faith

and

(Anni Albers became

work. Intensely moral

Hence Steps— like main

its

of the

The gray

is

adjacency to the

Homages a

three-

Foremost

fifty

pervasive

years the

power of

two art,

and technical proficiency

known

as

one of the major

weavers of modern times). They developed a modest

and functional way of

seen at a distance.

in the

a reverence for materials

of atmosphere and takes

011 a

of the most life.

marriage to Anni; they remained together until

the artist's death in 1976. For over

machined and constant when

altered ad-infinitum as a result of

white.

qualities,

related images

the photographs further

indicate the strength as a portraitist tional artist

and dark

light

rhythm and abstract

same time

in yet

works. The photo-

and the photo-collages juxtapose dramatically. At the

in a very

was destroyed. That original

qualities are apparent in the

is

in the black-

already intrigued both of them previously. Albers

ventured into the realm of

significant personal relationships of his

of the steps

as the

were also

6),

white spectrum on spatial motion-an issue that had

glass piece that are not clear in either of the later

flight

each of these

almost identical, but rhythm,

grisaille paintings are

yet confident, they

life

geared above

in their

were

work

like a

sect. Particularly during the

all

standards,

to their

humble

two-person religious

Bauhaus

years, their art

bore a strong mutual resemblance-a point that has led

to endless conjecture as to -

.

I

ater

diverged

it

work

of

and

reverenc

.1

who

whom

influenced

in verj different directions,

each was always marked h\

prevalent tightness and

order,

was

innovation

real

imetric abstraction. p.irt

fig.

bui the

I

he grid,

its

of their shared

creed.

Allvrs also became close to

some

ot his other fellow

students at the Bauhaus, especialh Breuer mk\ Bayer, with

whom

\

lerbert

he Liter maintained connections

in

the United States.

Mis relationship with Gropius

remained significant

tor

him

until the i9^os,

when

he

designed murals tor several ot the American buildings designed b) the

had

little

MohoK

first

director.

work

And while he

ot Itten

and Laszlo

Nagy, he deepl) respected both Klee and

Kandinsky, with

warml)

Bauhaus

taste tor the

whom

he continued to correspond

Bauhaus closed

after the

in

1933. Klee and

Kandinsky, along with Mies van der Rohe, were the

A nni A

I

hers

Untitled Wall Hanging. [915 Silk.

101

Whereabouts unknou

(>

Pablo IV //'<•

Milliner's

Oil en

i..in\.is. <y-

lection C

eir

Workshop |anuar) 1926

1

>

\

ioo's"

Musee Nat ion. d'Ari Modeme, - Pompidou, Paris 1

1

n

people with

whom Albers carried on his most profound

exchanges about the processes of Albers

was one of

the Bauhaus.

say that

it

The

the

art.

most experimental teachers

at

students in his preliminary course

them

influenced

irrevocably. In

it

he stressed

the manipulation of materials, particularly the folding

and cutting of paper to create astounding effects.

plastic

He encouraged students to work creatively with

cardboard, wire mesh, newspaper, ribbons and other substances not formerly thought of as belonging to the

realm of

art.

The goal of

the course

was

both dexterity and imagination. Albers's

to develop

own

artistic

achievement demonstrates the extent to which he realized the directives of his teaching.

1932 the

In

city legislature of

Dessau, dominated by

the Rightist Radical party, voted to dissolve the

Bauhaus, of which Mies van der Rohe had become

The school moved

director in 1930.

to Berlin, into a

building that formerly housed a telephone company.

was, however, the

city of

Dessau that continued

faculty salaries, because the courts

the city's contract with the masters

On

nated prematurely.

June

15,

to

It

pay

had deemed that had been termi-

1933, the Oberstadt-

Paul Klee

Old Man

Figuring. 192.9

n 3/4

Etching, printed in brown-black, plate

Collection

New

The Museum

of

x yVs"

Modern An,

York. Purchase

inspektor of the Dessau City Council wrote Josef Albers a letter in which he stated: Since

you were a teacher at the Bauhaus

you have

to be regarded as

in

Dessau,

an outspoken exponent

of the Bauhaus approach. Your espousing of the causes

and your

active support of the Bauhaus,

which was a germ-cell of bolshevism, has been defined as "political activity" according to part 4 of the law concerning the reorganization of the civil service of April 7, 1933, even

involved

in

though you were not

partisan political activity. Cultural

disintegration

is

the particular political objective of

bolshevism and

is

its

most dangerous

sequently, as a former teacher of the

task.

Con-

Bauhaus you

did not and do not offer any guarantees that you will at all times

National State.

50

and without 1

reserve stand

up for the

The Oberstadtinspektor informed Albers would no longer

On July

receive a salary.

20, as a result

of increasing harassment from the National the

Bauhaus

one

faculty, at a

meeting

in

Socialists,

which Albers was

of seven participants, voted to dissolve the school.

Mies van der Rohe At age

notified the

forty-five Albers

modernist

in

Gestapo accordingly.

was without a

a Jew,

was

was tumultuous. The prints he

(see cat. nos.

a pioneer

little

hope of

he must have feared a

bleak future. Yet his art of the time life

As

job.

Nazi Germany he had

finding one. Married to

his

that he

as unruffled as

made

107)

is

193

3

106-108) bespeak the serenity Albers must

have lacked but craved. To look at The Sea

''

in

7

(cat.

no.

to feel the role of art as a source of personal

equanimity through technical absorption. AJbers applied

a soft linoplate to

incised to

wooden

.1

continuous curve into

.1

remove

wood

curve to reveal the rich

before using

it

on

strips of the linoplate

first

backing, and then chisel

.1

eithei side of thai

name

Albers.

art,

and the power

The

grain underneath.

first

mainstay thai assured AJbers'ssun

unpen

ions to

pin sua

own

.is

I

identity

well

was

crisis.

they thought

international and

increasingly

Anni to

also be an opportunity tor

it

might be

C

arolina was; at

the Philippines. Kut they

in

cabled back their acceptance, with the warning that

spoke no English. The reply from the Black

fosef

Mountain

was something

here

1

ival,

emotional. His sense oi his

as

would

here

point

art the focal

he Alberses had no idea where North

were the

ol their result,

I

make

could

mk\ he had immediately suggested

give instruction in weaving. I

processes oi

who

of a teacher

of the curriculum,

was

faculty

to

come anyway. And

the process of obtaining passports

mk\

went surprisingly smoothly.

so began

visas, all of

which

Unknown

to the

timeless about Alhers's art. The tonus were familiar to

they

main

Alberses at the time, the procedures were expedited by

German, and the epoch -both

times.

subject matter

in their

and

It

identifiabl)

first oils characteristically of

an

xpression-

I

Sea speaks less clearly of place or era. This

universality, as well as

to Rice's

(

)U Man

juxtaposes

similarly

main

ot

its

\

isual elements, link

[929

of

I

8

fig.

which

,

irregular horizontal lines

slightly

of vary ing thickness to larger

mk\ more previse undulat-

ing curves. In both prints the interplay creates a

complex

v

isual diversion, and

blendsta

ity

the

felt

C

withserenity.

ommittee

formed group

their relation-

however tenuous, to [ugendstil and

ism- The

it

m ways

linoleum prints were

the earl)

ship,

modern

cultures in ancient as well as

ilities

Anni and c

1

For both Anni and Josef Albers, tunities tor a balance

world; In ing.

to

and repose

was an antidote

it

less certain in

opporthe real

to the pressures of everyday

he emotional detachment from their locale was

I

make

transmigration to another society

easy. In the

summer

of [933 the

student Philip Johnson, .\n^\

art ottered

seen their

work

Berlin apartment.

at

relatively

American architectural

who had met Anni and

the Dessau Bauhaus,

He asked

America. Without giving

it

would

they

\

Josef

isited their

like to

go to

armed

November

arolina, in

Artists, a

\<-> j

in

Black Mountain, North

time for their

just in

j,

American Thanksgiving. They quickly and up the teaching and making of

was

a

problem. At

on one

whom

first

took

Language, however,

weeks Anni,

who

as a child

governess and therefore spoke

Irish

glish, sat in

art.

easily

Albers taught with a translator

first

at his side. After several

had .m

newly

Americans already aware of

Nazi Germany.

[osef Albers

translator,

1

of

Rescue German

to

ot affluent

had

some En-

of his classes. She noticed that the

she suspected of Nazi sympathies, was

making Josef sound

far

than he actually did

in

go unaided. Since

more Teutonic and

dictatorial

German. She com meed him

fosef

felt

to

that the essence of his

teaching depended on visual demonstration more than

words, least

this did

not pose major problems tor him. At

he knew the new tongue well enough to state his

teaching goal with succinct clarity

-"to open

eyes."

rhese words were to remain a personal credo of his

amis as an educator.

Anni took

it

upon

herself to teach the

new language

to

her husband. Sometimes the results were dubious.

a

moment's

Once, when the two were walking

consideration, they answered yes. Six weeks

later, [osel

near the college. Josef saw the word "pasture" on a

it

more than

received a telegram from Johnson asking like to teach art at a

formed ers of

new and experimental

Black Mountain. North

in

(

he would

it

college being

arolina.

I

he found-

Black Mountain had approached fohnson

office at

I

he

Museum

of

Modem

\rt in

in his

search of the

signpost and asked his wife

what

perfectly clear," she replied. "It

it

is

in

farm country

meant. "That

is

the opposite of

future." But in spite of the rough start, both Alberses

were eventually to lecture and write books

w

ith vast

m

English

succ

>'

The language

was

of art

produced a print

was

publisher in Asheville that

troublesome. Albers

Bauhaus

the

Asheville prints were

arrived in

America

very similar to one (see

power of

pure, undiluted color.

When

closed.

shown

19^4, Kandinsky wrote

in

in Berlin

the Berlin and

sheets clear

.

.

.

and forms, than

tures

They seem

and improvisational, with

their

the preceding works, but like

abstract, nonreferential shapes-that are kernels of

finally a perfect

technique."

24

effective

The work

new work reveals nothing of the uncertain-

energy. This

of the

ties

artist's life;

rather

it

makes paint and panel

a source of high spirits. In spite of the appearance of

randomness

in these paintings, their positive

embodies points that had become central to Albers's

always the

teaching and which he articulated

abstraction of ca. 1940 painted on an

Bauhaus

element must yield at

Wings

(cat.

in

1928.

least

one

sum

over and above the

in a lecture

pub-

'An element plus an

interesting relationship

Thus

of those elements. "

no. 109), there are not only the

left-

terplay between the two.

game

of opposites.

negative of the one

on the

stripes

left

Is

in

and

right-hand configurations, but also the constant

in a

in-

The viewer becomes engaged the rectangle

on the

more

the preface to the catalogue

reflect all Albers's qualities: artistic invention,

lished at the

far

rougher tex-

the earlier pieces they present solid areas of pigment— in

and convincing composition, simple but

means: and

carefree

years after he

first

(see cat. nos. 112- 117) revel in the

end of

in Italy at the very

accompanied the exhibition, "These beautiful

that

paintings Albers executed during the

in) with a

106-108) he had been working on

cat. nos.

when

less

series (see cat. nos. 109-

Why

left?

on the

right the

do the horizontal

appear to be white on black and

What

those on the right black on white?

the nature

is

top

result of

mood

RCA

Victrola

no. 115) demonstrates the precise approach

(cat.

that characterizes even Albers's seemingly offhand

work. Like the forms

in so

many of Albers's

two-figure

paintings of the thirties and forties (see cat. nos. 126-

two

128, 134, 140), the

cloud-like central bodies have

been conceived with great care. Their colors accentuate their personalities.

The jaunty pink

rangey one; the green,

somehow

perfect for the stockier,

a

suits the tall

more

settled hue,

sum

which resembles the

exceed two; the tense void between the two forms

one another

to these prints as are relationships of color in the

Homages on

to the Square. "Frugality leads to

lightness.... In

any form, nothing should be

unused, " Albers also wrote

in that

economical Showcase

no.

see are

and

emphasis

(cat.

1

two rectangles-one with

a third configuration in

1

1928 essay. 1

its

)

left

In the

essentially all

we

corners flattened—

which

a single line

is

contorted to create two interlocked beings that appear to lean into

one another. There

physical or emotional. elevate the it

down

We

The

is

no gravity

here, either

larger rectangle appears to

whole configuration, the second one

to hold

so that everything does not float heavenward.

read the composition as chambers within cham-

bers, as

.1

stage, as

comedy.

A

few thin

lines, carefully

positioned, provide endless entertainment.

Like his earlier glass pieces and the later Homages, the

>-

is

relationship of these bodies elucidates Albers's point that the

forces exerted against

and

more compact shape. The

of the strange attraction between the two bodies,

by two magnets? Relationships of forms are as essential

is

conscious decisions. The untitled

of one plus one in art can, in fact must, is

as

interesting as the forms themselves.

Albers

was

1949. In a

he had

at

Black Mountain College from 1933 to

world

come

tranquility.

in

to a

which oppression was spreading, haven for freedom and

relative

This was his typical move. In a hierarchical,

class-conscious

Germany he had found

his

way

to the

Bauhaus, an island of intellectual and social experimentation.

Now, with

totalitarianism overcoming

homeland, he had arrived

his

free

from most of the

in a

pocket of America

restrictions of conventional

middle-class society. Albers's freedom did not just

from physical

above he

all

easily,

place,

derived from his

and with

total

however;

own

his

come

independence

character. In the 1950s

awareness of what he was

doing, distanced himself from the multiple pressures of

academia his

own

at Yale

and of the

New York

art

world

to

go

route. Luck, along with an intense determina-

don

mm.i

I

not onl)

peaked

.list)

freedom

own

his

work from

lis

I

Me took

metrj u of

nn

>

he

135-137,

and ambiguity.

sterj

I

in

and

some

all

made

le

and

Bauhaus

at the

-4 '>

Me showed

.

a

source

pre use shapes that

Me was

ottered multiple readings.

chemist who, tor inents

1

once clear and rational mk\

at

period

straight lines

geometric forms further than he had Il8-I22,

diversit)

this

surroundings and the power

of his

imagination.

see cat. nOS.

art

was Hans Hofmann),

adventurousness and

in his

isiting

\

Mountain

two major

oik- of the

the other

paintet and printmaker.

.1

reflects the

of

his years at Bl.iek

become

America

in

Black

.it

pivotal figure, the

.1

numbers of students and

for great

did he

teachers

catalogue describes

in this

where he was

members. During

faculf)

enabled him always to

an administrator mk\ teacher

.is

ollege,

t

drawing card

but he

[arris's essa)

I

Albers's role

Mountain

destiny,

and work exactl) what he wanted.

his life

Marj

.is

own

to shape his

make

like a

laboratorv

of the exactitude ol his

puritv of his elements, delighted

measure

most

1

all

it

inexplicable alchemy. >>

In a

remarkable group of drawings from [936

nos.

119-122

which

.

time, planes shift

and

look at them. The

main

take on as

surest

.

are exhibited here tor the fold in contradictor)

flat

w

a\

we

pieces of white paper begin to

was reaching

unknown. We

still,

collapse.

we

tor

he

\

lew point.

work has

volumes grow and then

feel

questioning look to

a

and

earl)

it

and

[940s see cat. nos. [33, 166

Mere geometric tonus interlock alternately

rapid!)

Museum

m

background.

their

We

location

stillness that

ambiguous ways,

from foreground to

the) coexist

w

ith

[936

[94

s.

he Staatliches

1

Volkerkunde, which Albers almost

when

visited

seems the onl)

he lived

likely place tor

m Munich him

cer-

1919-20,

in

to have seen actual

Janus heads, as opposed to reproductions of them.

190s

tig.

9

,

mask acquired by

shows remarkable

painting. Both

the

museum

A in

same

time.

I

similarities to Albers's

mask .mJ painting contain

elements that are

individual

distinctl) separate and unified at the

he mask offers two independent angular

profiles that of course

belong to the same head.

the potent

simultaneous!) appear to

jut

awav from

that

I

hev

head and

dominates the compositions. to be contained b)

JartUS,

Volkerkunde,

.

cannot quite pin the movements

down, or understand how

fur

Janus-face helmet

appear to he transparent and opaque, and

shift

fur

n;vos and early

the late

We

unites our musing. So does a sequence of pamtii the late [930s

Museum

Munich

something, mov-

enter the process with him.

constant!) change our

lose surfaces, I

and other materials,

Collection Staatliches

tainl)

gam and

leather, paint

high

2

in

Standing

Anyang or Keaka

facets as a prism. The thin, lilting lines

that Albers

nto the

Mask

Janus Helmet Nigeria,

Wood,

first

as

s

it.

cat.

no.

[46

.

exemplifies the kind of

double imager) that increasing!) preoccupied Albers

of

it,

to be linear

And jagged

vet part

something massive and round. Similar!) the

of Albers's Janus

move with power mk\

lines

ccrtamtv awav

io Josef Albers

Study for "Bent Black A" ca.

(detail).

1940

and

Pencil

Collection

oil

on paper, 24 x 19"

The Josef Albers

Foundation

from the main elements of the composition while being centered by

it

and dependent on

and inward occurs ning-like

at once,

it.

and

felt

quantity in these works.

answers; there was no right or

And

in

mask

and black

alike the contrast of white

is

as

everything depends

they

saw

in greatest

He was pleased to get different

Movement outward there are both light-

bands and large central masses.

and painting

asked people what color they

upon

wrong

response, for

individual perception.

One

person sees more black, another more white. The point

strong and deliberate as the play of mass against void

is

and edge against bulk.

properties of the white or black themselves give the

that although there are equal quantities of each, the

viewer an erroneous impression. This was what Albers

Three variations on a theme-Bent Black

Dark Gray, 1943

1940, and Bent

— represent

A and B, both nos. 135-137)

(cat.

called "the discrepancy

between physical

fact

psychic effect," the demonstration of which

and

was an

the earliest instance of Albers's deliber-

imperative of his

art.

ate use of equal quantities of different colors in a single

composition. This intent notation on an 10).

oil

apparent

is

on paper study

for

in the pencil

A

Bent Black

strictly (fig.

Here Albers has carefully worked out the compos-

ition so that there are precisely forty

and one-half

square-centimeters of each color: the black, the dark gray, the white

and the

light

gray border. This

system serves a number of purposes. For one, forth restrictions of the sort Albers enjoyed

on

himself.

He

felt

strict it

sets

imposing

that tough rules, like the poet's

sonnet and the composer's sonata, by their very nature imparted harmony to the end

results.

He did not expect

viewers to read the system precisely, but, rather, to gain a sense of order and regularity through the use of equal

amounts of

different

it.

Additionally,

pigments dem-

54

a central

for

apportioned color. The notations

Movement

in

Gray, 1939

(cat.

in the studies

no. 133),

show

the

premium he placed on schemata, and how important it

was

for

him

to be the master of the destiny of the

picture. For Penetrating B,

both a in

full-size

which he

hand-drawn

its

grid

and smaller drawings

tested different widths

determining the in all of

1943 (cat.no. 165), he made

final

and angles before

measurements. Control-perhaps

negative as well as positive associations— is

at the root of all Albers's art.

Despite his careful forethought, Albers did not eschew a degree of spontaneity.

Having charted

would occasionally succumb

his course,

he

to an on-the-spot intrigue

would

with paint and surface, which might produce unusual

theme of his Variant paintings. Albers

textures that could never have been planned in ad-

onstrates an important point about color, which

become

Albers used a grid for these compositions in which he

vance.

I

he results of such spontaneity are apparent

the nature

ing H.

<

works

the paini coverage in

>t

whose

shapes, b) virtue o( their internal

rid)

could get ever) thing right w ithout using

Mere

his

combination

a rigid format.

and

of thoughtful articulation

apparent insouciance reached

apogee.

its

mysterious, unfathomable sea.

textures,

encompass

a

precise

framework

yields the infinite.

\

in

like Penetrat-

At Black Mountain Albers often had his students use

Equal and Unequal, [939

work

i;^

is

,

another

which Vlbers deliberate!) pursued ambiguity.

seems no accident

1

1

in

no.

^.u.

AJbers has,

thai this

at least for the past fifteen years,

chosen

work

in

her bedroom, where she faces

tor

hours on end.

In

mam

and the

the picture

it

1

two-person relationships— a point supported

both i" attract and

b)

ielualit\, yet at

one another

the

and swim. Position and adjacenc)

one another. These

ver)

Anm

background that

It

to be

oddly

like a

mam

front

in

and

explicitl) represents sea

alongside the leaves so that the) appear to be

and

tilted

toward one another,

and

skv,

cat. no.

shadow box

150). Albers has painted a sort of

tunes she

is

inanimate objects become majestic presences

looks as

Albers says that the painting has

never tailed to elude her; howe\er

effect

in relief

conversing

jauntil)

tries

through the elegant void that separates them. Their

between the two tonus, she

to grasp the connections loses

float, fly

shown

its

same time seem drawn toward

b) strong, inexplicable forces.

between them.

are

Magntte, two leaves are

painting bv

highl) charged, invisible rays ofenerg) cross the void

it

been on public view, leaves appear to dance,

its

laden with possibility. In a collage that

resist

and

194

which have never before

,

floating shapes appear

freel)

similar beings remain separate, each powerful in

mdiv

leaf studies of ca.

see cat. nos. [47-151

[942

[wo independent,

own

analo-

is

gous to the Alberses marriage as well as to other close

title,

cut-paper backgrounds on

effects of

these leaves. In his

ua\s

to their relationship to other

.is

leaves,

the sole art

both the wa) that the individual

change according

leaves

importance of posi-

leaves to investigate the

tion, considering

Amu

the painting that

is

autumn

wings spread, they look as

whatever swein she

first

reads.

Space.

I

lere as in

much

if

can soar through

the)

work of

ot Albers's

the period,

the imager) ot individuals afloat in a magical universe

rhroughout the

late thirties

and

forties

earl)

Albers

used identical formats to present different color combinations, as he had

done with

constructions and the

Treble

<

several of the glass lefs.

I

he changes

of

[94

nos.

cat.

141-144

.

verv

slight

proportional variations are accompanied bv particularly subtle color

Albers's earl)

permutations,

forays into

unmodulated color appear I

he) are weightless

["hese are

making

flat

among

like tour

The appearance

frenetic.

other

In

|oset's Black

.

In the flow of their

make movement and

then-

vague reference to natural phenomena, these four pictures again recall klcc's

work.

I

hev

show Albers

ot esprit, bordering

named

tor the

1940s

Mountain

C

ollege friends

and bulge

to encapsulate the

drawing students not is

the

Anm

and

and associates !><)

toddler.

,

lines

Its

use

more than two continuous, unmodulated

lines recalls the exercise in

issue

ot

cat. no.

pudgy

on

Eh-De, [94

young son

Theodore and Barbara Dreier see

and To Mitla

58-141

full

the small drypoint etching

[58),

ot nothing

1

presence of the

ot Albers's prints of the early

case the results are

leap

forms, their use of color to

stasis in the

ranges from childlike to precisely machined. In either

paintings from 1940, Growing, Layt red, Tierra Verde cat. nos.

And work: the

life

spiritual.

cat. no.

expansi

to be intersecting planes.

and light-touched,

achievement of grace And

his

in

tional climate of the compositions. In the three versions

Open

major goal ot

a

emo-

color atteet both the internal rhythms and the

of

embodies

to

which Albers mandated lift

how muJi you can

pencil get

his

from paper. The

from how

little,

fwo

other etchings, both dated 1942, are similarly tive yet

restric-

evocative of their subjects: the etched lines of

Maternity

(cat.

of Escape

no. 157) envelop

background of sea and

way

that

suggests that Albers did not always keep his concern J

about the plight of refugees

The Graphic and

related

range

ingly calm.

his art.

itself.

animated to penetrat-

to

And

much

me

that

as that

marcel proust,

drypoint

like the

not so

.

that

should lead

it

and love of things

it

it

me

better than

might perpetuate

their

might reveal that beauty

me.

Here movement and resolution are com-

bined within single images.

.

beauty for

(see cat. nos. 160, 161) also

intensely

had asked of his painting

to the understanding

Tectonic series of zinc-plate lithographs

mood from

in

remove from

at a

drawings of 1942

sky.

and succor, while those

no. 156) dart furiously in a

(cat.

they are in front of the grain, which becomes a

discussing the paintings

The Guermantes Way

of Elstir in

19

etchings, they achieve compositional complexity

through minimal means. Their appearance, however, is

highly mechanical. But for

technique, the

ambiguous; lively.

movement

for

all

all

the exactitude of the

of their forms

completely

is

their coolness, they are recklessly

Configurations that resemble wiring diagrams

are subtly mysterious.

The Graphic Tectonics show that

In

1947 Albers began what

"other" is

the

The

series.

Adobes or

artist's

and accuracy, and of

well the merits of discipline

economy of

material

in his teaching.

The

and

labor,

series also

as

which he propounded

demonstrates the

ability

of "black lines [to] produce gray tones and, for sensitive eyes, color.""

8

For example,

it

almost

is

impossible to believe that the background color of the

paper

is

constant in the drawing Graphic Tectonic

no. 160).

(cat.

Some

areas look snowy,

some

111

ivory or

even purple, apparent tonal variations caused by Albers's manipulation of parallel lines. scientific,

A group

Once again

a

exacting approach yields the unexpected.

of prints from 1944

(cat.

evidence that a clever juxtaposition of elements

key to a transformation of

realities. In

Tlaloc

no. 168) white planes appear as hard

as

sheet

aluminum, and seem

made

of the white paper on top of which the surround-

ing

)6

wood

bent.

Although they are

grain has been printed, the planes look as

if

level.

change of colors transforms both the emotional

Two

paintings of identical format with different color

schemes can have radically alter their

different effects. Colors

appearance according to their surroundings;

a green has

one appearance

one when

in a sea

of pink, and a very

it

abuts somber browns and grays.

In the Variants Albers

demonstrated techniques he had

different

in earlier

work and which he was

bent on inculcating application of

and thin

new

character and the apparent physical action of forms.

directly

rain

his system-

driving at certain points in these paintings.

no.

god, broad-shouldered and all-powerful. In Astatic (cat.

A

was

now

of a single structure reached a

atic pursuit

Albers

which the form

in

had long taken multiple

the

on top

works

radically. Albers

is

becomes the Aztec

them

which he

only slightly but the colors

(cat.

169) a spare configuration of thin, straight lines

of a wood-grained background

for

alters

approaches to the same problem, but

used

nos. 167-T69) gives

own nomenclature

before his idea of a series of

change

They embody

known,

painted perhaps a hundred, he carried further than ever

courses at Black Mountain College: a clear head, '

to be

Variants. In the Variants, of

remains constant or

-

came

by a public more familiar with the Homages, as his

Albers himself had achieved the goals of his drawing

"seeing eyes, and obedient hands."

later

in his students.

unmixed

increasingly

These included the

colors, straight out of the tube,

on the white background but never on top of

other colors, to create the illusion of transparency. creation of this illusory transparency

an exercise

in

students' task

was

The

the goal of

Albers's color course in which the

was

to find the right

"middle" colors to

give the false impression that a veil-like

band was

on top of other forms. He had

shown

earlier

master)' of this in Flying (cat. no. 94)

lying

his

own

and would

later

u

rue-

about

it

Interaction of

in

olor.

<

I

he Variants also

demonstrate thai incompatible tonus ol motion can appear

Man)

occur simultaneously.

to

urations

ol the config-

these paintings appear to oscillate forward

in

and backward,

and

left

and awa) from

along the picture plane

right

into mysterious depths.

it

contradict realit) and induce the

learly, to

C

was

iewer's disbelief

v

part of the artist's continuing mission. "

Albers devised systems which he used to

madness, mj insanity"

'mv

call

Variant tor-

for the different

mats. Most are based on formulas of the type that underlies the Hoit Black paintings. According to these

systems there are virtually equal quantities of each color, or,

and

m

halt as

precisel)

much

true.

not the same.

more yellow than

The his

I

idea is

power

of the

possibilities

gave

,\Ui.\

impression that there

this

it

and truth it\

are

ofcolor.

of color, Albers

as effective a voice

it

had learned that color can

has qualities that enable

it

was not

gray even

that perception

is

as he could develop, lie

deceive;

It

becauseof the super lot

A devout missionar) its

of three colors

others.

Rather the\ were to think the) saw more

green than blue or

studied

two

of

however, for viewers to recognize

Vlbers's intention, his formulas.

were not

amounts

souk' cases, equal

more or

is

it

to give the

less of

than

it

1

1

Josef Albers

Variant: C

I

Laboured

ollection

Don

of reverse

detail

Page,

New

.

u;4 - -s:

iork

is

actuall) present. I

Albers's art both reflected his pedagOg)

list,

from the back

and nourished technical

it.

Some

of the

concepts

it

reveals

the purel) aesthetic decisions that

And although tar

the

more than

works make

exercises.

its

not primarily their

mixed

in.

all

ture of

us.

It

learn

about

didactic side.

its

[ere

I

lb

came

the colors. Starting with the large

cadmium

KeilK

\

(

red light

cadmium and Iray

#s and

and zinc white, zinc white,

mix-

mixture

Venetian red,

;

yellow ochre

^

1

1

1

1j4.Hr

on top

of

the Variants serve as exemplars ot Reilly's

theories, thev

["hen

Mizarin

and animation, that 4

beckon

its

pinkish area and working outward, there are

of

their enticing blend ot serenit)

we can

begin, there were four coats of white, with varnish

and dramatic color juxtapositions,

their formal grace

,

Albers, in very neat small senpt, wrote his recipe.

making.

demonstration ot fascinating principles, but above

11

of

certain points, the) are is

It

were byproducts

went into

fig.

makeup, and hence

do so

in

tonus

rich in artistic values.

frontal Stance ot their tonus,

immobile and

The

Gra) #4. The

not unique, elements.

list

has several unusual, although

Two

of the colors are mixtures -

fluid at the

because Albers tonne! that to obtain certain pinks mk\

same

time,

and

their effect as

reduced

reliefs,

which lavenders he could not use paints straight from the

recalls the

shallow bas-reliefs

<Âťt

the sandblasted glass-

tube but needed to combine a darker color with zinc

constructions, transfix us.

white. Then there c

onsider Variant: Harboured, 1947-52 eat. no. is^

.

In a studv

tor

is

the overpainting of the

tirth color.

Harboured Albers had used

onlv

the

gray in the outermost area; in the course of working

on

must have decided he wanted

the final painting he

something

to try

way;

in this

He frequently changed his mind many works, especially Homages,

else.

in

Albers painted one color on top of another. For

the

all

preparation and careful planning, he remained recep-

change, his eye always dictating his ultimate

tive to

decisions as he proceeded. the listing of colors

The painting

high, thirty wide; each measures

three.

It is

fifty

Mountain

the system for

all

before

He

exhibition.

always

i

"

and

a highly astute graphic

Anni and Josef

College, did not

felt its

know about

proportionate Tightness

without understanding the precise origins of that quality. artist

Nothing would have pleased Albers more. The

did not

interfere

want the reading of

the

method

to

with the pleasure of looking: knowledge

should not obstruct experience.

He

make

technique any more

visible the

nuances of

his

to use

it

craved light in his working situation.

want

did not

to

New Haven

in

the

Homages

The

paintings lay

eight-foot

flat

on simple work tables-four- by

plywood panels on sawhorses. Over one were arranged warm, cold,

cold; over the other they were

He wanted

cold, cold.

Presumably he did the Variants, as well as in a

comparably controlled

do

his paintings

look best

in fact

us.

premeditation are especially

Harboured.

A beacon of light shines out at

The pink and orange, played

against the darker

brown, gray and gold, radiate luminosity the

opaque

glass constructions,

where

like that of

reflected light

seems to come from behind. That resonant key to the character of Albers's in the

light

art. Scientific

is

a

research

1980s has revealed the positive effects of light on

the pysche, the perils of the long dark Scandinavian winter, the

human need

for

for brightness inside the

exposure to sunshine and

home. Light

is

a positive,

his earlier

situation. in

Although

natural daylight,

Albers would not allow his working method to victim to

its

fall

vicissitudes.

Clear light was imperative to more than Albers's It is

always present

Homages -at

crucial to his art.

warm, warm,

to see each painting under

but always highly luminous, conditions.

different,

work,

to

invariably executed

dark grays -as he did

in

so

to the Square under fluorescent lights.

table the fluorescent bulbs

warm,

He

Even when Albers worked exclusively

pungent

He was

1950-inside a studio where he was

assured of an ideal brightness.

understatement marked the means through which he

results of Albers's

essential

world (which might have

suggested the otherness, the virtually inexplicable sense

The

an

than subject himself to the

that, rather

uncertainties of the natural

process.

unknown,

as

from then on.

in his paintings

than he wished to bare his psyche. Discretion and

of depth and the

of Josef

investigated light in his glass

and he continued

it

all

move

reverse in preparation for this

its

He

central to

on dark

the years he possessed the painting,

we examined

constructions,

it is

days) he painted -at least from the time of his

studied with both

Albers at Black

He had

Albers's work.

And

forced him, like Bonnard, to forgo painting

as precise as the contents of a chemist's flask.

who had

with the sun: the source of earthly growth,

it

the parent of our world.

element

we

invigorating, in part because

twenty units

is

units each of the remaining

The owner of Harboured, designer

on

It is

two by two centime-

ters. There are seventy-five units each of colors "

"2"; one hundred and

associate

desperate for

The breakdown of units follows the reverse of the picture.

uplifting force.

least

in the finished art as well. in blacks

in several Variants

one of the grays

often the blackest of blacks

is

is

and

and many

luminous.

radiant as well.

And

To have

used darker tones entirely without luminosity would

have produced a negative feeling antithetical to Albers's

approach. The light physical nature of the forms parallels the luminosity of the tones.

Heaviness would

Murky

colors or weighty

have denoted encumbrance.

masses would have suggested internal doubt or

bowing

to external forces.

The function of

art

was

a

to

provide an alternative to uncertitude or negativism, to

surmount rather than succumb.

The luminous character of

Albers's paintings

spiritualizes them.

It

to the celestial plane,

bances

man)

movements and

artistic

probing of the

.1

self,

trends

in

Albers's

when

centurj

a

thought have

work

geared

is

tow. iid transcendence. In

his

saturation of colors, a theme he Interaction of

olot

<

.is

hues

their

equally bright

would

like lovers,

of saturation, differ-

he reason the two colors appeal

I

w lure

the) abut

bloom occurs

.it

one .mother

are almost

their junctures.

points of contact.

the boundaries

between

and brown are

distinct.

I

he\ are

more

On the other hand, some

like

sort

romantic pair of

also pointedl) demonstrated the

change according

to their surroundin

depth

in

hard to believe that the central vertical

the fact.

I

hand nearer the

he illusion occurs because the gra)

looks greener w hen

it

is

surrounded

does the hue of the gra) change neighbors, hut so does

seems closet

its

expanse, where

it

it

does

b) pink. in

Not only

relation

to

apparent spatial position:

to the picture plane

rectangles than

m

in

its it

those vertical

the broadei

horizontal

[949.

I

Vlbers

left

IU.uk Mountain

t.

ollege in

he atmosphere of the school had soured, with

intense feuding within the administration,

Uberses tendered then resignations. After

and the a year in

began the

name became School ot Art.

the Yale University

had an indelible

effect

on thousands

Whether they went on

there.

to

become

ot students

professional

architects or designers, or entered totally

artists,

unrelated

fields, the)

give repeated testimony that his

color and drawing courses And the impact of his

made an

personality

[958-once

full-time teaching in

some duress— but he remained

rest ot his life.

in

the

New

I

he most important ongoing

with the universit) was his work with Yale

link

on Interaction of Color.

Universir\ Press It

up

unparalleled educational experi-

area and retained peripheral affiliations with

Haven

was

alter his retirement

from teaching that Albers

devote himself to painting.

could

full)

more

prolific.

He designed

Me became

virtuall)

ever)

possible print

and wrote about

his Structural Constellations.

and tribulations of raphers

Henri

(.

his

own

celebrity:

I

le

Newman

And interviewers, the

stream ot exhibitions. His all

IK

time he had

the visiting photog-

artier-Bresson, Arnold

a

in

of his dealings with the

and

corre-

modus world

long handwritten letters— ever careful and

gracious— and

modating w

And

job with the pleasures

a full-time

virtuall)

in

medium. And developed

published other books and essays.

what was

tar

record covers, fireplaces

And murals. He also made numerous Homages

were

i\

core, he

its

forever after, lor almost a decade his

Snow don among them

reads as background.

at

synonymous with

operandi tor almost

fosef

as a painter,

Square on which he would work

ro the

spondence and

Anni and

would achieve more

gridded square

a careful!)

Yale tor the

perimeters of the picture are the identical color. Bur is

position as

a

Vile University.

to a city laid out in the seventeenth centur) with

for the

rectangles and the horizontal gra)

that

mo\e

mature container

is

at

lie

again under

It

where he took

laven,

major moves

years old. In the twenty-six years that

ence. Albers gave

is

ings—another concept he was to pursue Interat Hon.

ot the three

last

He was sixty-two

and brown and orange

that colors

I

the

remained to him,

how n

Harboure d Albers

way

New

hat

[Miik I

brighter colors. In

to

lite:

made

head ot the department ot design

a\k\ he

intensity,

radiant on their ow n and glow ingeven

fiercer) at all their

of serious,

in

ma) be that the) contain similar pn

the boundaries \

also explore

w hue. Because the) are the same

in nis of zinc

illegible.

are.

of his

pink and orange ol Har-

["he

boured have comparable degrees ent

|osef

teacher and writer than ever before. In the \ear ot his

and Homages Vlbers investigated the

Variants

New York

mundane

the

presence also en

iconic

["heir

othei worldl) aspect. In

theii

stressed

them from

elevates

a

clear-headed .\nd endlessl) accom-

ite.

continued to paint Variants

he onl) took up the theme on

a

until

14^,

after

which

tew rare occasions. But

the paints were

the

"Early

Odt

same

from the same batches, perhaps even

tubes.

Despite the similarity of color, the paintings produce very different effects. Early

Ode

gains

haunting

its

presence from the mysterious, luminous yellow that

seems the perfect middle tone between the cadmium

and the

gray. In a certain light, that yellow almost

disappears into the gray. Arrival has more of a look of victory to

it,

thanks largely to the two bold and weighty

colors that separate the

same cadmium and

alter the internal course, everything

J^Kt^^t: iVGZ,

Arrival the colors appear to

if

changes with

move

You

gray.

can have the same starting and end points, but

you In

it.

and out,

in

in

accordion fashion. In Early Ode, however, the second square out from the middle of the picture appears to be a tissue, which seems alternately to

under the central square. In

truth,

lie

over and

each color has been

painted directly on the white ground, in accordance 12 Josef Albers

with Albers's self-imposed rule that he must never put

IU nuage to the Square: Early

Ode

one square on top of another. (He did, however,

1962

(detail of reverse).

sometimes repaint Collection Maria and

Conrad

single squares.) Yet

thin film, held taut in space, keeps shifting

Beverly Hills

position in front of the

behind in the

Homages he maintained some

themes.

One was

Albers sometimes

of their central

made two Homages with

intervening colors

)de, 1962,

would

1

identical

make

between them. The

the identical colors look

from one another.

with Arrival, [963

If

(cat.

we compare

Early

nos. 221, 222),

scarcely surmise that the central

we

and outermost

squares of the two paintings are precisely the

it.

cadmium yellow pale

Morever forms seem

at

same

93

t

first

explored

(cat. no.

in the glass

96). Albers

construction Steps,

and wide and done countless blotting paper (see cat. nos.

always

with their manufacturers' names, on the

reverse of each panel (see

fig.

12). In

Arrival, the middle square

is

a

both Early

Cadmium

Ode

Yellow

manufactured by Blockex, the largest square a

Chapin Neutral

I

from Shiva. Since the two works

were done within a year of each other,

t"

listed all

we assume

that

studies

Yellow Light, made by Old Holland, that would achieve this perpetual motion and transformation.

Nowhere ing ones Mist,

is

the effect of a single color

more astounding than

1967

(cat.

in the

on

nently),

all

its

neighbor-

diptych Despite

no. 245). In this pair of paintings,

them

piece-like quality as well as coupling

as in the Variants, Albers

far

192, 194-199) to find the Schewingen

Homages,

Pale

a

to be

must have looked

which Albers hinged together

and

from

to a place

one moment

color, but Albers's notations prove that they are. In the

his colors,

a

translucent, at another opaque, a play of the type that

Albers

different colors in the interval

totally different

if

the mutability of color perception.

colors in the central and outermost squares and

<

looks as

it

Janis,

(giving

their altar-

them perma-

the elements except for the outermost

squares are identical. There are no variations whatsoever in

size,

format or the middle and second colors,

although under most light conditions unbelievable.

Not only do

this

seems

the tones in the interior of

the composition look entirely different in the

two

paintings, but

movement, shapes

tin.-

the degree to

which the corners appear rounded and internal prop

unions

seem

of the squares also

someone could take

Warm" and

That

to change.

Gra

paints called "Optic

solidity."

I

placing them next to either

on the

Shiva

bacher on

and

rlu-

mk\

left

right

is

which sequences

lie-.

1

,

.is

.1

faith.

in

in

does

more than

the

awa\

in

\

lewer

Not

the other.

paints appear to he very

different

The

colors solely because their position has changed. c

admium

Yellow Pale b) Rembrandt

Warm

outermost square of Naples Yellow

b)

Moreover, the

And

Silence,

the

in

Silence. Similarly, the

the middle of

in

si/es of the

squares

two

different

ver)

in

Warm

Tenacious

in

although the same, appear

the paintings have

call)

at

odds.

w huh Albersgave

w huh

to his

compared

when

are alone, another

the)

whom

human

to

and psychologically, mk\

surrounded

In

the) resemble phvsi-

another when the)

yet

Their relatives often

strangers.

dominance

the

intensify

it

are with a

the)

mitigate their distinctiveness, while foreign

\

isitors ^.\n

ot certain characteristics In

people themselves do not change, our

our perception ot colors, varies

just like

according to their surroundings. Additional!) the

work

suggests, with powerful effect,

the compatibility of contradictions.

emphatically horizontal

The Variants,

both their overall dimen-

in

sions and in the narrow, rectangular bands that

broad surfaces, are given

across their

two

the

.\n

upward

sweep lift

In

central vertical rectangles that resemble twin

doors. That

lilr.

putting a springy bounce into a

In

gentle sweep, intellects cheer into sobriety. Pensive

forms— they suggest furrowed eyebrows and brow -are

Homages

the

as well,

because

it

is

What

is

a sense ot over-

especially

is

very light-hearted.

with solemnity.

emotional

we experience

repose that

a

a creased

Viewing the Variants and

ot laughter.

full

whelming calm,

is

climates, the essential characters of In their titles,

the center of

Blockex that tonus the border

Tenacious looks different

and Warm

in

resembles the same paint

Tenacious scarcel)

Silence.

is

this directional difference occur, but, addi-

identical

tionally,

furthest

when

group of family members

view ot them,

are painted in pre-

philosophical complexity.

color behavior can be

contrast. Even

antral square seems to be closest to the

one painting and

onl)

all

cat. nos.

simple transformation one might anticipate, which that the

ot

New York

Silence, 1971

Ins reversal yields

1

list

,\\w\

behavior. People, like colors, have one appearance

are

the order in

pair in a private

same tour yellows

reverse order.

cise!)

onl)

vary

and Warm

which hang

collection, the

Grum-

In

of identical colors have been painted.

Tenacious, 1969,

lis,

#8

Gra)

testimony not only to diligence

Sometimes two Homages

In

hapin Neutral #i by

c

Reilly's

but also to imagination and

craft,

h\

on

gave birth not onl) to fantasy, but also to

It

considerable spirituality

appearance

alter their

Albers's precise manipulation of paints

those unyielding Masonite panels was his "prosaic

#\ tool," both made bj

"Optic Gra)

Marabu, and so thoroughl)

"

thin

High

phlegmatic

effective

spirits coexist

also fiery;

is

what

somber, playful.

are coin e\ed

works

In

after they

both the Variants and the Homages, not onl)

moods but also irreconcilable motions We teel stretched across that picture plane, our

opposite were completed. coexist.

arms pulled

In

an essa\ on halo

(

alvino,

Gore Vidal quotes from

.m Italian television interview that took place shortly

before the novelist's death.

"Onl)

a

cream

it\

a

Cab mo claimed

certain prosaic solidity ;

fantas)

is

like

solid piece of bread.

thing, like jam, out of

jam; you have to spread It

not,

it

that,

can give birth to it

on

remains a shapeless

which you can't make any-

taut; at the

same time we

are pulled

upward.

We

are looking at a

single

flat

plane careful!) subdh ided m^\ decorated,

its

vet

suddenl)

we hud

two-dimensional object,

ourselves pursuing a complicated

course through a proscenium stage.

and outward .\n>.\

right.

at the

same

We move

inward

time, then simultaneously

With color too

there

is

a

left

confluence ot

opposites. Albeis might juxtapose a midnight black

with the blue ot

a

noonclav

skv, a cold, disfincth

4'

Pablo Picasso Guitar. 1912.

Charcoal on paper, 1SV2 x Collection

New York, fractional Mrs. Donald B. Marron Art,

manmade

steely

yellow. Art

was

gray with a verdant green and a sunny to accomplish

what nature could

body of

Irreconcilable elements are also joined in a

work

not.

of 1949 to 1976 which Albers called his Struc-

tural Constellations or Linear Constructions (see cat.

nos.

171-176).

These are discussed by Neal Benezra

and Charles Rickart This series

is

to the

in their essays in this catalogue.

"'

Graphic Tectonics and some of the

other earlier geometric prints and drawings as the

Homages

to the

Square are

achieve from a

While

say to

my

I

minimum

was

students,

still

'Do

in a

more

en-

subject

is

always ambivalent forms, which simultane-

ously appear to be

penetrated

flat

in a variety

and three-dimensional and

are

of incompatible ways.

Cubism. Like Picasso's 1912 drawing Guitar

in

an interview

"Though my same urge to

of effort a quantitum of

teaching in Europe,

I

used to

order to do more.'"

pursued linear

refined format than ever before.

He

devised a system based on minimal variables and

4-

made from

graved brass and large architectural commissions. The

these Structural Constellations descend directly from

In the Structural Constellations he

geometry

engravings on black Vinylite, prints

most

attitude, the

less in

drawings, embossed prints (white on

white, white on black, white on gray), white-line

artist

paintings and linear constructions are not connected,

effect.

two

in the

Paul Overy,

same

in large

diligently for over

rough working sketches,

which the

had long been grappling. As Albers said

they stem from the

and then

it

first in

of Mr. and

In offering multiple approaches to the picture space,

reductive form possible, of ideas with

critic

took form

It

gift

to the paintings that

precede them: a further development,

with the English

subsequently worked on decades.

2.4W

The Museum of Modern

(fig. 13),

they use simple, well-drawn, unmodulated lines to

make

planes that shift perpetually and forms that

appear to unfold

first

one way and then another. The

discrepancies seem both like magic and like accurate reflections of the variables in the reality,

human

grasp of

psychological and physical. Both Picasso and

Albers questioned the nature of

all

perception.

They

discarded old notions of truth and standard ideas about vision.

their

And both

artists

took a formal approach to

themes, developing a sequence of internal

pai

and echoes and

illels

thai impart unity

and

careful balance ol elements

.1

appear less.

change constantly, volumes become weight-

to

seems

fibers

lere

I

onstellations

<

have started out earthbound

to

and then moved heavenward; having Him given us

makes

implicid) weight) three-dimensional bodies, he

them

float.

I

he transformation through u hich masses

and the

are rendered weightless,

ment

were

into statu objects,

move-

interjection ol

among

Albers's constant

preoccupations. In the sandblasted glass works he had

mass

countered the heav)

the materials with the

ol

Homages

Variants mw\ the

In the

effects of light.

he

began b) methodicall) appl) ing paint grounded to the

made

panel, but subsequent!) the colors ethereal.

negation ol weight and mass

Ins

I

and

the forms buoyant

both establishes and denies such physical properties,

son

the

ment

.it

through the application ol overtl)

means.

Scientific

heads

in

square

first,

matter, the core trom intervals

two or lett

on the earth and

their feet

cosmos thanks

the

central, or

which

underneath that

right ol

and

it

above

tripled

is

and

a halt units

doubled

at lett

In

ot earthl)

elements ot

vertical

heavenly. "

1

his as)

to the

In the foul

ten units

and

wide

and one

right

The Poweroj the

Kudolt Arnhenn explores the w

normal balance

is

it.

wide underneath the

halt a unit

high above.

he

1

tour units w ide. each ot

is

middle square, one unit w ide

a)

S

enter,

this ratio shifts the

and heavenl)

horizontal

a single

(

square

in

mmetr) produces the

favor d\

ÂŤ>t

the

namics

the theme, a squeezing below, an expansion above.

promotes it

all

the are

a

depth

effect,

the squares were

same

center."

I

he