| Josef Albers (1888-1976) | ||
| NMAA
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Albers left the Bauhaus when the Nazis forced its
closing in 1933. In 1934 he settled at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Albers
was a master of geometric abstraction, blending angular shapes of geometry (rectangles,
squares, circles) with colors balanced to generate a deep sense of harmony. He attracted to Black Mountain College talented students and instructors (Willem de Kooning Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell). In 1958 Albers became the first head of Yale's department of design. He explored hundreds of ways in which a color changes its character in juxtaposition to neighboring, opposite or related color, demonstrating that opaque colors can appear translucent and warm can appear cool. Albers adopted a geometric motif of squares within squares to limit formal ideas and let exploration of colors come through. His best known series is entitled Homage to the Square.
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Picture red, white and blue toy blocks with letters of the alphabet (AlBers) on them.