Embossed Linear Constructions (ELC) 2-A, 1969
Josef AlbersEmbossed Linear Constructions (ELC) 2-A, 19691969
1969
About the Item
- Creator:Josef Albers (1888 - 1976, American, German)
- Creation Year:1969
- Dimensions:Height: 20 in (50.8 cm)Width: 26 in (66.04 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Columbia, MO
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU1976210608052
Josef Albers
The German-born American painter, writer, and educator Josef Albers was a pioneer of 20th century modernism, and an innovative practitioner of color theory. With his wife, the textile artist and printmaker Anni Albers (1899–1994), he shaped the development of a generation of American artists and designers through his teaching at the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and later at Yale University School of Art, where he was the chairman of the department of design from 1950–1958. Albers is widely known for his series of prints and paintings "Homages to the Square," which he created between 1950 and 1975. His influential volume on color theory The Interaction of Color was published in 1963.
Albers was born in Bottrop, Germany, and as a young man he studied art education, earning certification from the Königliche Kunstschule in Berlin in 1915. He entered the legendary Bauhaus school in Weimar in 1920. The Bauhaus had been established by Walter Gropius in 1919, in the immediate aftermath of World War I, with the hope that its innovative curriculum would foster connections between architecture, art, and traditional crafts. In 1923 Albers began teaching the Vorkurs, the introductory class in which new students learned to work with each of the key artists’ materials, along with color theory, composition, construction and design.
Albers was a polymath, and the multidisciplinary environment of the Bauhaus was fertile ground for his artistic ambitions. When the school moved from Weimar to Dessau in 1925, he became a full professor, and in addition to glass and metal, he designed typefaces and furniture. While at the Bauhaus, Albers drew inspiration from the work of his colleagues, the color theorist Johannes Itten, and the painter, photographer, and designer László Moholy-Nagy, with whom he co-taught the Vorkurs.
In 1933, the Bauhaus was shut down due to pressure from the Nazi Party, which perceived the school as being sympathetic to communist intellectuals. As Albers’ wife Anni was Jewish, the couple resolved to leave Germany, and settled in rural North Carolina. The architect Philip Johnson helped make arrangements for Albers to join the faculty of Black Mountain College as the head of the painting program, where he remained until 1949. While at Black Mountain, both Josef and Anni Albers became influential mentors to American artists including Ruth Asawa, Cy Twombly, and Robert Rauschenberg, while working alongside fellow professors Buckminster Fuller, John Cage, Merce Cunningham and William de Kooning.
In 1950, Albers joined the faculty of the Yale University School of Art where he would head the newly established Department of Design until his retirement in 1958. In the 1950s, the Alberses began taking trips to Mexico, where the colors and forms of the local art and architecture inspired both artists.
In 1971, Albers became the first living artist whose work was the subject of a solo retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Though they worked in different mediums, Josef and Anni Albers’ work shares a fascination with color and geometry. Josef Albers’ compositions from the "Homages to the Square" series, such as Formulation: Articulation Portfolio II Folder 28 (B), from 1972, give deceptively simple shapes a novel vibrance as colors play off of one another. The hues in Articulation Portfolio II Folder 28 (B) work in concert to give the flat surface the distinct appearance of a tunnel or other three-dimensional space; while the form on the left appears to move towards the viewer, the form on the right seems to lead directly into the canvas. Similarly, Anni Albers’ designs for textiles use graphic design to lend a sense of dynamism to flat works. Her Study for Unexecuted Wall Hanging (Bauhaus), from 1984 is a Mondrian-like pattern for a weaving in which different colors alternately recede and advance into the foreground, giving the image a sense of complexity and uncanny depth.
Josef Albers also created works of public art, including a delicate, geometric gold leaf mural called Two Structural Constellations for the lobby of the Corning Glass building in New York City in 1959. He designed a work called Two Portals for the lobby of the Time & Life Building in 1961, in which which and brown bands move towards two square panels made of bronze. Walter Gropius invited Albers to create a piece for the Pan Am Building, which he was designing with the architectural firm of Emery Roth & Sons. Albers reworked an existing glass piece from his Bauhaus days called City, and, fittingly, renamed it Manhattan.
Find a collection of authentic Josef Albers art on 1stDibs.
- Embossed Linear Constructions (ELC) 1-D, 1969By Josef AlbersLocated in Columbia, MOEdition 38/100 Josef Albers (b.1888, Germany ) built legacies as an artist, designer, and teacher, and may be familiar to any former student of art or design (even if for only one, ...Category
1960s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsArchival Paper
- Embossed Linear Constructions (ELC) 1-C, 1969By Josef AlbersLocated in Columbia, MOEdition 38/100 Josef Albers (b.1888, Germany ) built legacies as an artist, designer, and teacher, and may be familiar to any former student of art or design (even if for only one, ...Category
1960s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsArchival Paper
- Embossed Linear Constructions (ELC) 2-B, 1969By Josef AlbersLocated in Columbia, MOEdition 38/100 Josef Albers (b.1888, Germany ) built legacies as an artist, designer, and teacher, and may be familiar to any former student of art or design (even if for only one, ...Category
1960s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsArchival Paper
- Embossed Linear Constructions (ELC) 2-C, 1969By Josef AlbersLocated in Columbia, MOEdition 38/100 Josef Albers (b.1888, Germany ) built legacies as an artist, designer, and teacher, and may be familiar to any former student of art or design (even if for only one, ...Category
1960s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsArchival Paper
- UntitledBy Geneviève ClaisseLocated in Columbia, MOUntitled 2015 Color serigraph 15.75 x 15.75 inches Framed: 21 x 21 inchesCategory
2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Signe paysage IIBy Olivier DebreLocated in Columbia, MOLithograph Ed. EACategory
1990s Abstract Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- ATO>MIC #15, Unique Silver Luminogram Print, Warm toned black and white abstractLocated in London, GBATO>MIC #15, 2020 Unique Gelatin Silver Print/ Luminogram and Photogram technique, Hand Printed on tea infused fibre based paper, Custom Framed: museum mount-board with antireflective UV protective art glass in dark brown lacquered hardwood frame, /hand made in UK/ 18 x 23 cm 40.5 x 36 cm (Framed) Unique Series: ATO>MIC Signed and dated in pencil on verso Provided with the Certificate of Authenticity Instead of using carving...Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, Black and White, Silver Gelatin, Tea, Photographic Paper...
- Seven IslesLocated in West Palm Beach, FLLithograph by artist Tony Khawam, high quality archival ink on bond paper 11”x14” bevel cut matte mounted on white matte board with options to choose between white or black frame 16x...Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Landscape Prints
MaterialsArchival Ink, Archival Paper
- Abstract Black and White Luminogram Print of Central Park in New York CityLocated in London, GBCentral Park is part of a group of prints based on a visit to New York City, Because I live and work in quiet isolation and often don't meet anyone apa...Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Black and White Photography
MaterialsPhotogram, Silver Gelatin, Archival Paper, Black and White, Photographic...
- Flowers, The Self Representation of Light, Unique Luminogram, Drawn by LightLocated in London, GB#473 FLOWERS, 2016 Luminogram, Silver Gelatin Print Print size: 30.5 x 40.6 cm Framed: 49 x 58 cm Frame with the classic museum style mount board and black frame/ Print can be shipped unframed - options available with more shipping prices available - please message us for more info/ This is a Unique piece Series: The Self Representation of Light Signed and dated in pen on verso, Certificate of Authenticity provided The Luminograms are made from the most simple of procedures - directing light onto silver gelatin photo paper. However, it is that simplicity that allows Jackson to adapt his own way of thinking into the making of the finished piece. As he says, it's as close as he can get in photography to painting. "I don't really see photography and pottery or painting or music to really be different to each other. Some are more immediate, some are more subtle. Music seems to be able to control emotions, photography seems to create a satisfying pleasure from just a tonal flat surface. Same with painting. One of the biggest mysteries for me is why all these things manage to control us in some way." - Michael G Jackson...Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Black and White Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, Photographic Paper, Black and White, Photogram, Silver G...
- ATO>MIC #10, Unique Silver Luminogram Print, Abstract geometry in warm tonesLocated in London, GBATO>MIC #10, 2020 Unique Gelatin Silver Print/ Luminogram and Photogram technique, Printed on tea infused fibre based paper, Framed: custom made frame with anti-reflective art glass Print size: 23 x 18 cm Framed: 38 x 35.5 cm Unique Series: ATO>MIC Signed and dated in pencil on print's verso Certificate of Authenticity provided "At first glance the viewer may only see geometric spherical shapes with added lines and rectangles on tea toned Silver Gelatin paper. "The supremacy of pure artistic feeling" rather than the visual depiction of objects assign to the art movement of Suprematism comes to one's mind. Similarly, like a giant of abstract art Kasimir Malevich, Jackson wants the viewer to look further, deeper than one might usually. The feeling of 'sensation' of the ATO>MIC prints, the sharpness of the forms, the intensity defying its size to condensed 9 x 7 inches' paper, make it all the more dramatic to look at. It takes the viewer to another level of fantastical world of creation." Beyond these flat forms of two dimensional ‘lumino-graphic’ works on paper, the purest form of photography (‘light drawing’) lays a visible path to three-dimensional imaginary world, realised in precise composition, rhythm and warm earthy tones of these works. It’s up to the viewer to decide what they prefer to see and take with them. As Wassily Kandinsky once said; “Imagination is what allows your mind to discover.” About the Artist: Michael G...Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Black and White Photography
MaterialsArchival Paper, Black and White, Silver Gelatin, Photogram
- Las Olas IslesLocated in West Palm Beach, FLLithograph by artist Tony Khawam, high quality archival ink on bond paper 11”x14” bevel cut matte mounted on white matte board with options to choose between white or black frame 16x...Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Landscape Prints
MaterialsArchival Ink, Archival Paper