Spilling Over: Painting Color in the 1960s

This painting comes from Homage to the Square, a series Josef Albers developed from 1950 to 1976 that eventually encompassed more than one thousand separate artworks. Albers approached each of the Homages with meticulous consistency. He would select one of four set layouts, all of which were symmetrical and oriented toward the bottom edge. He then applied each color, in this work a range of oranges and reds, from the center out, using a knife to spread paint straight from the tube. Albers’s technique allowed him to use the same form to create vastly different experiences, and to explore the distinction between “physical fact and psychic effect.” Across the series, color combinations affect not only how we see individual hues but also how we perceive space and form, with some squares seeming to leap forward while others recede.