Homage to the Square: SP IV

Josef Albers

This screenprint on Schöllers Hammer Board board is part of the "SP" portfolio, Number 4 from 1967, which consists of 12 screenprints. It was printed and published in an edition of 125 by Editions Domberger in Stuttgart, Germany, for Galerie der Spiegel in Cologne. It is catalogued as No. 175.4 in Brenda Danilowitz's catalogue raisonné, "The Prints of Josef Albers." This impression is pencil initialed in the lower right and is also pencil titled in the lower left margin.

Josef Albers used the "Homage to the Square" as the subject of color studies for twenty-five years, creating over 1,000 paintings and prints relating to the shape in schemes of three to four colors. Drawn to the orderliness of geometry, Albers had regularly used graph paper to plot out his artistic ideas; however, he also believed that total symmetry was lifeless, and that intentional asymmetry was a necessary component to a successful composition. In 1949, after formulating a variety of layouts that would best complement his color studies, he chose the descending nestled squares - symmetrical on the horizontal axis but asymmetrical on the vertical - as the ideal way to communicate his theory.

The specific layouts were designed to challenge visual reception. Certain color combinations created a "telescopic" effect, making some squares appear to project forward while others receded into the background. Albers chose the square because it is a man-made shape not found in nature, which allowed the viewer to focus entirely on the color without being distracted by representative imagery or organic forms.

The series was an extension of his teachings at Yale and Black Mountain College, helping students and the public learn the "mechanics of vision".

Once he had settled on a composition, he turned his attention to color schemes. The Whitney Museum comments: "These strictly ordered compositions were merely means to an end. He explained: 'The scheme of the Homages has no real esthetic consequences by itself. There were hundreds of possibilities, but since my main problem is color. . .let’s have a scheme, a cooking pot that cooks for four people, and no more. Therefore, let the colors react in the prison in which I put them.'"

Josef Albers was born in Westphalia, Germany, on March 19, 1888. His formal art training included the Weimar Bauhaus, where he became professor in 1925. When the Bauhaus closed under Nazi pressure in 1933, he immigrated to the United States and joined the faculty of Black Mountain College, North Carolina. There, he ran the painting program until 1949. His students included Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Ray Johnson, and Susan Weil.

In 1950 he left Black Mountain College for Yale University to head the Department of Design. He taught there until his retirement in 1958. He continued to work, however, collaborating with architect King-lui Wi, writing poetry and the book Interaction of Color (1963), working on structural constellation pieces, and designing abstract album covers for Enoch Light’s Command LPs, among other projects. With his wife, textile artist Anni Albers, he would found the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, a not-for-profit organization to “further the revelation and evocation of vision through art”. He would continue to work in New Haven until his death there on March 26, 1976.

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