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Josef Albers

(American/German, 1888–1976)

study homage to the square by josef albers

Josef Albers

Study Homage to the Square, 1960

Sold

homage to the square (curated collection of 5) by josef albers

Josef Albers

Homage to the Square (Curated collection of 5)

Reserved

study for homage to the square by josef albers

Josef Albers

Study for Homage to the Square, 1969

Sold

study for homage to the square by josef albers

Josef Albers

Study for Homage to the Square, 1969

Sold

Biography

Timeline

1888
Born in Bottrop, Westphalia, Germany
1925
Appointed Bauhaus master, Dessau, Germany
1933 - 1948
Taught at Black Mountain College, Black Mountain, NC
1939
Became a citizen of the United States
1948 - 1950
Member of Advisor Council of the Arts, Yale University, New Haven, CT
1950
Appointed Director of Department of Design, Yale University, New Haven, CT
1975
Died in New Haven, CT

Exhibitions

2018
Josef Albers Selected Exhibitions in 2018:
Josef and Anni Albers. Voyage inside a blind experience, Santa Maria Della Scala, Siena, Italy, April 6 – July 4, 2018; traveling to Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland; Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia
Josef Albers: Interaction, Villa Hügel, Essen, Germany, June 16 – October 7, 2018 [catalogue] (solo exhibition)
Looking Back (Looking Forward): The Black Mountain Experience, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee, January 11 – March 2, 2018
A Luta Continua. The Sylvio Perlstein Collection, Hauser & Wirth, New York, April 26 – July 27, 2018
Reds, Mnuchin Gallery, New York, April 27 – June 9, 2018 [catalogue]
American Masters 1940-1980, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia, August 24 – November 11, 2018
2017
Josef Albers Selected Exhibitions in 2017:
Josef Albers: Sunny Side Up, David Zwirner, London, January 13 – March 10, 2017 [catalogue titled Josef Albers: Midnight and Noon] (solo exhibition)
Small-Great Objects: Anni and Josef Albers in the Americas, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, February 3 – June 18, 2017 [catalogue]
From the Collection: Josef Albers: Homage to the Square, Grace Museum, Abilene, Texas, September 15, 2017 – February 10, 2018 (solo exhibition)
Josef Albers in Mexico, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, November 3, 2017 – March 28, 2018; traveled to Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy, May 19 – September 3, 2018 [catalogue] (solo exhibition)
Begin to See: The Photographers of Black Mountain College, Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, Asheville, North Carolina, January 20 – May 20, 2017
Picturing Math: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, January 31 – May 8, 2017
The American Dream: Pop to the Present, British Museum, London, March 9 – June 18, 2017
Craft Becomes Modern: The Bauhaus in the Making, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, Dessau, Germany, April 13, 2017 – January 7, 2018
The Revolution is Dead. Long Live the Revolution! From Malevich to Judd. From Deineka to Bartana. Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland and Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland, April 13 – July 9, 2017
Artists of Color, The Underground Museum, Los Angeles [organized in collaboration with The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles], June 4, 2017 – February 4, 2018
Seurat to Riley: The Art of Perception, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, United Kingdom, July 8 – October 1, 2017; traveled to Holburne Museum, Bath, October 20, 2017 – January 21, 2018
Poetic and Political, Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, August 15, 2017 – July 8, 2018
Artists in Exile, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, September 1 – December 31, 2017
Jacob Lawrence: Lines of Influence, Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, September 7, 2017 – February 4, 2018
Cutting Edge: Albers, Gaul, Knoebel, Galerie Ludorff, Düsseldorf, September 9, 2017 – January 27, 2018
Pas de deux: Römisch Germanisches Kolumba, Kolumba, Kunstmuseum des Erzbistums Köln, Cologne, September 15, 2017 – August 20, 2018
Josef and Anni and Ruth and Ray, David Zwirner, New York, September 20 – October 21, 2017
Pivotal: Highlights from the Collection, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California, October 7 – December 31, 2017
Monochrome: Painting in Black and White, National Gallery, London, November 1, 2017 – February 18, 2018; traveling to Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, March 21 – July 15, 2018
Accrochage, Galerie Boisserée, Cologne, December 2, 2017 – January 13, 2018
2016
Josef Albers Selected Exhibitions in 2016:
Josef Albers: Homage to the Square, Galería Cayón, Madrid, February 25 – April 23, 2016 (solo exhibition)
Formulate/Articulate, Burlington City Arts, Burlington, Vermont, April 4-8, 2016 (solo exhibition)
Josef Albers: Grey Steps, Grey Scales, Grey Ladders, David Zwirner, New York, November 3 – December 17, 2016 [catalogue titled Josef Albers: Midnight and Noon] (solo exhibition)
One and One is Four: The Bauhaus Photocollages of Josef Albers, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 23, 2016 – April 2, 2017 [catalogue] (solo exhibition)
Drawing Then: Innovation and Influence in American Drawings of the Sixties, Dominique Lévy, New York, January 27 – March 19, 2016
The Illusive Eye, El Museo del Barrio, New York, February 3 – May 21, 2016
Albers and the Bauhaus, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, February 11 – March 12, 2016
Chance, Order, Change: Abstract Paintings 1939–89, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, Alabama, February 11 – May 8, 2016
Rauschenberg and Albers: Box Vs. Square, Bob Rauschenberg Gallery, Florida Southwestern State College, Fort Myers, Florida, February 26 – May 14, 2016
La Boîte de Pandore: Une autre photographie, par Jan Dibbets (Pandora's Box: Another Photography, by Jan Dibbets), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, March 25 – July 17, 2016
From the Collection: 1960-1969, Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 26, 2016 – March 12, 2017
Three Centuries of American Prints from The National Gallery of Art, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., April 3 – July 24, 2016; travels to Národní galerie v Praze, Prague, October 5, 2016 – January 8, 2017; Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City, February 7 – April 30, 2017; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, May 28 – September 3, 2017
The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, September 11, 2016 – January 2, 2017
Architecture of Color: The Legacy of Luis Barragán, Timothy Taylor, New York, September 23 - November 19, 2016
The Painters of Black Mountain College: Selections from Southern Collections, Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, Asheville, North Carolina, September 23 – December 31, 2016
Antonio Calderara: A Light Without Shadow, Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland, October 1, 2016 – January 22, 2017
L'Esprit du Bauhaus (The Spirit of the Bauhaus), Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, October 19, 2016 - February 26, 2017
Formes et couleurs dans la création textile (Forms and Colors in Textiles), Musée de l'Impression sur Étoffes, Mulhouse, France, November 11, 2016 - October 1, 2017
Hard-Edge Cool: The Routhier Collection of Mid-Century Prints, Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont, November 19, 2016 – January 22, 2017
2015
Josef Albers Selected Exhibitions in 2015:
Albers in Command, Ace Hotel, Los Angeles, opened January 31, 2015 (solo exhibition)
A Beautiful Confluence: Anni and Josef Albers and the Latin American World, Mudec: Museo delle Culture, Milan, Italy, October 28, 2015 – February 21, 2016 (solo exhibition)
Light/Dark, White/Black, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts, January 17 – July 31, 2015
Embracing Modernism: Ten Years of Drawings Acquisitions, Morgan Library and Museum, New York, February 13 – May 24, 2015
Arts & Foods: Rituals since 1851, La Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy, April 9 –1 November 1, 2015
Seeing Color: Art, Vision, and the Brain, Academic Focus Gallery, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina April 13 – July 5, 2015
Op Art, Kinetics, Light: The Würth Collection, from Josef Albers to Vasarely to Patrick Hughes, Kunsthalle Würth, Schwabisch Hall, Germany, May 18, 2015– January 10, 2016
Black Mountain: An Interdisciplinary Experiment 1933–1957, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, Germany, June 5 – September 27, 2015
Transmission: Recreation and Repetition, L'École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, June 18 – July 14, 2015
Intersecting Colors: Josef Albers and His Contemporaries, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, August 28, 2015 – January 3, 2016 [catalogue]
Back to Basics: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, Malibu, California, August 31 – December 6, 2015
Corita Kent and the Language of Pop, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 3, 2015– January 3, 2016; traveled to San Antonio Museum of Art, February 13 – May 8, 2016
Search Versus Re-Search: Josef Albers, Artist and Educator, 32 Edgewood Gallery, Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut, September 8 – November 28, 2015
Black Sun, Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland, October 4, 2015 – January 10, 2016
Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College, 1933-1957, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Boston, October 10, 2015 – January 24, 2016; traveled to Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles, February 21 – May 14, 2016; and Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, September 17, 2016 – January 1, 2017
How to Live? Visions of the Future, Yesterday and Today, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany December 5, 2015 – February 28, 2016
2014
Josef Albers Selected Exhibitions in 2014:
Josef Albers: Medios Minimos–Efecto Maximo (Josef Albers: Minimal Means, Maximum Effect), Fundación Juan March, Madrid, March 28 – July 6, 2014; traveled to Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden, Norway, September 18 – December 14, 2014 (solo exhibition)
Josef Albers: Process and Printmaking, Museo Fundación Juan March, Palma, Spain, April 2 – June 28, 2014; traveled to Museo de Arte Abstracto Español, Cuenca, Spain, July 9 0 October 5, 2014; Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, November 2014 – February 15, 2015 (solo exhibition)
Josef Albers: Black and White, Waddington Custot Galleries, London, May 6 – June 4, 2014 [catalogue] (solo exhibition)
Homage to the Square: First–Last, 1950–1976, Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, Germany, May 7 – August 10, 2014 (solo exhibition)
Josef Albers/Joan Miró: The Thrill of Seeing, Fundació Pilar y Joan Miró, Mallorca, Spain, May 22 – November 9, 2014 (solo exhibition)
Jean Arp–Osvaldo Licini, Museo d'Arte Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland, April 12 – July 20, 2014
Color Shift, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California, June 18 – August 24, 2014
Objektiv: Josef Albers, Oran Hoffman, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel, July 11 – November 22, 2014
Exterior Spaces, Interior Places, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts, September 2– January 4, 2015
The Avant-Garde Collection, Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California September 7, 2014 – January 4, 2015
Museum für Gegenwartskunst, One Million Years––System und Symptom, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland, October 11, 2014–6 April 6, 2015
In Living Color: Andy Warhol and Contemporary Printmaking, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, October 11, 2014 – January 11, 2015; traveled to Jepson Center, Savannah, Georgia, February 27 – May 17,2015; Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida, June 20 – September 20, 2015; Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma, October 18, 2015 – January 17, 2016; Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, Jacksonville, Florida, February 13 – May 15, 2016
Harry Seidler: Painting toward Architecture, Museum of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, November 1, 2014 – March 8, 2015
Making Music Modern: Design for Ear and Eye, Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 15, 2014 – January 17, 2016
The Cranbrook Hall of Wonders: Artworks, Objects, and Natural Curiosities, Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, November 23, 2014 – March 22, 2015
2013
Window to the World. From Durer to Mondrian and Beyond Museo Cantonale d'Arte and Museo d'Arte, Lugano September 16, 2012 to January 6, 2013 Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne January 25 to May 20, 2013
Josef Albers: Spritualità e Rigore (Josef Albers: Spirituality and Rigor) Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia March 19 to June 19, 2013
2012 - 2013
Inventing Abstraction MOMA, New York December 23, 2012 to April 15, 2013
The Sacred Modernist: Josef Albers as a Catholic Artist - Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork
Josef Albers en Amérique, Peintures sur papier - Centre Pompidou - Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris

Public Collections

Museum of Modern Art, New York
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Tate Modern, London, England
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England
Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, North Carolina
British Museum, London, England
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas

Literature

“A Note on the Arts in Education” American Magazine of Art 29 (April 1936): 233
“Art and General Education.” Yale Alumni Magazine, April 1958, 6-7, 16
Interaction of Color. Small ed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1971, rev. 1974. German ed. (Grundlegung einer Didaktik des Sehens), Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg, 1970, 1977. Japanese ed., Tokyo: David Sha, 1975. French ed. (L’Interaction des Couleurs), Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1974. Spanish ed. (La interacción del color), Madrid: Alianza Forma, 1975, 1989, 1998. Finnish ed. (Varien vuorovaikutus), Helsinki: Vaapa Taidekoulu, 1978, 1979, 1992. Swedish ed. (Farglara om fargers inverkan pa varandra), Stockholmm: Forum, 1983. Italian ed. (Líinterazione del colore), Parma: Pratiche Editrice, 1988, 1991
Weber, Nicholas Fox. The Drawings of Josef Albers. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984
Wick, Rainer K. Teaching at the Bauhaus. Ostfilden-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2000
Benezra, Neal David. The Murals and Sculpture of Josef Albers. Ph.D. Diss., Stanford University, 1983. New York and London: Garland Publishing. Outstanding Dissertations in the Fine Arts, 1985
Borchardt-Hume, Achim (Ed) Albers and Moholy-Nagy: From the Bauhaus to the New World. Contributions by Hal Foster, Hattula Moholy-Nagy, Terence A. Senter, Nicholas Fox Weber, and Michael White. London: Tate Publishing and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. www.tate.org.uk/publishing; www.yalepress.yale.edu
Boston University Art Gallery. Josef Albers in Black and White. Essays by John Stomberg, Karen E. Haas, and Brenda Danilowitz. Boston: Boston University; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000
Josef Albers: Paintings, Prints, Projects. Essay by George Heard Hamilton. New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1956
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Josef Albers: A Retrospective. Essays by Nicholas Fox Weber, Neal D. Benezra, Mary Emma Harris, and Charles Rickart. New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Harry N. Abrams, 1988; Cologne: DuMont Verlag, 1988
English (US)

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