Josef AlbersInterlinear K50 — Mid-Century Geometric Abstraction1962
1962
About the Item
- Creator:Josef Albers (1888 - 1976, American, German)
- Creation Year:1962
- Dimensions:Height: 18.75 in (47.63 cm)Width: 24 in (60.96 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Myrtle Beach, SC
- Reference Number:
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.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Myrtle Beach, SC
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 7 days of delivery.
- 'Interim' from the series 'Graphic Tectonics' —Mid-Century Geometric AbstractionBy Josef AlbersLocated in Myrtle Beach, SCJosef Albers, 'Interim' from the series 'Graphic Tectonics', zinc plate lithograph, 1942, edition 30, Danilowitz 101. Signed, titled, dated, and numbered '3/30' in pencil. A fine imp...Category
1940s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Constructivist Abstraction — 1930s Spacial IllusionismBy Paul KelpeLocated in Myrtle Beach, SCPaul Kelpe, Untitled (Abstract Composition), lithograph, 1937, edition unknown but small. Signed and dated in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, with all the nuanced texture an...Category
1930s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- 'Segments' — 1930s Geometric AbstractionBy Josef AlbersLocated in Myrtle Beach, SCJosef Albers, 'Segments', linoleum cut, 1934, edition 20, 25, plus proofs, Danilowitz 79. Signed, titled, dated, and annotated '(proof)' in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression on...Category
1930s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsLinocut
- Expressionist Abstraction — Hawaiian ArtistBy Tetsuo OchikuboLocated in Myrtle Beach, SCTetsuo "Bob" Ochikubo, 'Untitled (Abstract Expressionist Composition)', color lithograph, 1963, edition 3. Signed, dated, and numbered '3-3' in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, with fresh colors, on cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (5/8 to 2 inches), in excellent condition. Very scarce. Image size 17 1/2 x 12 1/4 inches; sheet size 19 7/8 x 14 7/8 inches. Matted to museum standards, unframed. ABOUT THE ARTIST Tetsuo Ochikubo (1923–1975), also known as Bob Ochikubo, was a Japanese-American painter and printmaker who was born in Waipahu, Hawaii. After service in the US Army as an infantryman in Europe during World War II, Ochikubo studied painting and design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York. He worked at the renowned lithography workshop Tamarind Institute in the 1960s and is best known for his non-objective paintings and lithographs. Ochikubo was a member of the Metcalf Chateau, a group of seven Asian-American artists with ties to Honolulu which included Satoru Abe...Category
1960s Abstract Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- 'Signes' — Mid-Century Modernist AbstractionBy Jean (Hans) ArpLocated in Myrtle Beach, SCJean Arp, Signes, woodcut, edition 50, 1949. A fine, black impression, with all the fine lines printing clearly, on cream wove paper; the full sheet with wide margins (1 5/8 to 6 7/8 inches), in excellent condition. Signed and numbered '8/50' in pencil. Matted to museum standards, unframed. ABOUT THE ARTIST Jean Arp was born Hans Arp on September 16, 1886, in Strassburg. In 1904, after leaving the Ecole des Arts et Métiers, Strasbourg, he visited Paris and published his poetry for the first time. From 1905 to 1907, Arp studied at the Kunstschule, Weimar, and in 1908 went to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian. In 1909, he moved to Switzerland and in 1911 was a founder of the Moderner Bund group there. The following year, he met Robert and Sonia Delaunay in Paris and Vasily Kandinsky in Munich. Arp participated in the Erste deutsche Herbstsalon in 1913 at the gallery Der Sturm, Berlin. After returning to Paris in 1914, he became acquainted with Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Amadeo Modigliani, and Pablo Picasso. In 1915, he moved to Zurich, where he executed collages and tapestries, often in collaboration with his future wife Sophie Taeuber (who became known as Sophie Taeuber-Arp after they married in 1922). In 1916, Hugo Ball...Category
1940s Abstract Abstract Prints
MaterialsWoodcut
- 'Arrangement with Blue Major' — Mid-Century AbstractionBy Edward August LandonLocated in Myrtle Beach, SCEdward Landon, 'Arrangement with Blue Major', color serigraph, edition 40, 1942, Ryan 9. Signed, titled, and annotated 'Edition 40' in pencil. A superb impression, with fresh colors, on cream, wove paper; the full sheet with margins (3/4 to 1 5/8 inches), in excellent condition. Image size 15 x 9 3/4 inches (381 x 248 mm); sheet size 17 15/16 x 11 3/4 inches (456 x 298 mm). Matted to museum standards, unframed. 'Arrangement with Blue Major' was selected for the landmark ‘Artists for Victory’ exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1942. Impressions of this work are also in the collections of the Asheville Art Museum, Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Museum Consortium, Georgetown University (Special Collections), Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, Rutgers University, Smith College Museum of Art, and the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts. ABOUT THE ARTIST Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Edward Landon dropped out of high school to study art at the Hartford Art School. In 1930 and 1931, he was a student of Jean Charlot at the Art Students League in New York, after which he traveled to Mexico to study privately for a year with Carlos Merida. In 1933 he settled near Springfield, Massachusetts, painted murals in the local trade school, and exhibited with the Springfield Art League. His painting 'Memorial Day' won first prize at the fifteenth annual exhibition of the League at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts. Landon became an active member of the Artists Union of Western Massachusetts, serving as president from 1934-1938. Landon acquired Anthony Velonis’s instructional pamphlet on the technique of serigraphy in the late 1930s. With colleagues Phillip Hicken, Donald Reichert, and Pauline Stiriss, he began experimenting with screen printing techniques. The artists' groundbreaking work in screen printing as a fine art medium was the subject of the group’s landmark exhibition at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts in 1940. Landon became one of the founding members of the National Serigraph Society and served as editor of its publication, 'Serigraph Quarterly,' in the late 1940s and as its president in 1952 and 1953. The Norlyst Gallery in Manhattan held a one-person show of his prints in 1945. Awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 1950, Landon traveled to Norway, where he researched the history of local artistic traditions and produced the book 'Scandinavian Design: Picture and Rune Stones...Category
Mid-20th Century Abstract Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- UntitledBy Vaclav VytlacilLocated in Provincetown, MAVaclav Vytlacil, an eminent American artist and educator, played a pivotal role in popularizing Hans Hofmann's teachings in the United States. Renowned alongside modernist giants lik...Category
Early 19th Century Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Eduardo Chillida - Collage - 1995 Lithograph 26.75" x 18.75"By Eduardo ChillidaLocated in Brooklyn, NYSku: R264 Artist: Eduardo Chillida Title: Collage Year: 1995 Signed: No Medium: Lithograph Paper Size: 26.75 x 18.75 inches ( 67.945 x 47.625 cm ) Image Size: 26.75 x 18.75 inches ( ...Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Perspective III - Original Lithograph by Renato Livi - 1971By Renato LiviLocated in Roma, ITLimited edition of 199 prints, numbered and hand signed.Category
20th Century Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Anton Stankowski, Lithograph, serigraph, signed and numb. Geometric CompositionLocated in Berlin, DEAnton Stankowski, lithograph (serigraph). Signed and numbered. Gemotetric composition. Dimensions with frame. Anton Stankowski was born in Gelsen...Category
20th Century Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Purple - Original Lithograph by Lorenzo Indrimi - 1970 ca.By Lorenzo IndrimiLocated in Roma, ITHand signed. Edition of 100 pieces and 30 pieces in roman numbers plus some artist's proofs.Category
1970s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Composition - Original Lithograph - Late 20th CenturyLocated in Roma, ITComposition is an original lithograph artwork on cardboard, realized in the late 20th Century. Hand-signed on the lower right. Numbered on the lower left, Edition II/XX. The stat...Category
Late 20th Century Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph