{"data":{"id":"9","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":9,"topgoose_id":30,"tms_id":9,"display_name":"Josef Albers","sort_name":"Albers Josef","display_date":"1888–1976","begin_date":"1888","end_date":"1976","biography":"\u003cp\u003eThroughout his career as an artist, teacher,\nand writer, Josef Albers investigated the\n“interdependence” of color and perception.\nHis famous series\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/series/3431\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eHomage to the Square\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n(1950–76) explores this concept in more\nthan a thousand paintings, drawings, prints,\ntextiles, and murals, each composed of\nthree or four nesting squares and produced\nin an array of colors. He began the series\nat the time he joined the faculty at Yale\nUniversity, after years spent teaching at the\nBauhaus and Black Mountain College.\nHis subsequent work in the classroom and\nstudio led to \u003cem\u003eInteraction of Color\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(1963),\nhis influential book on color theory.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlbers created the \u003cem\u003eHomages\u003c/em\u003e with\nmeticulous consistency. After applying\nseveral coats of gesso to a composition\nboard, he penciled one of four set\nlayouts, all symmetrical and weighted\ntoward the bottom edge. He then applied a\npredetermined palette from the center\nout, spreading colors straight from the tube\nwith a knife and recording names and\nmanufacturers on the verso (he occasionally\nmixed paints, including the blue here in\nthe early \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/4079\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e“Ascending”\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e). Such precision was\nkey to demonstrating the mutability of\nperception, or what he called the difference\nbetween “physical fact and psychic effect.”\nAcross the series, color combinations\nalter not only how we see individual hues\nbut also how we perceive space and\nform. As Albers noted, the squares seem\nto “move forth and back, in and out, and\ngrow up and down and near and far, as well\nas enlarged and diminished.” In \u003cem\u003e“Ascending”\u003c/em\u003e\nsquares of yellow, cream, gray, and blue\nradiate upward. Albers’s subtitle references\nthis illusion of movement, while hinting at the\npotential for metaphysical transformation.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500033049","wikidata_id":"Q170071","created_at":"2017-08-30T15:26:50.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-23T01:30:28.323-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/9/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/9/exhibitions"}}}}