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Lot 14
Josef Albers (1888-1976)
Study for Homage to the square "Negev"
Closed3 March 2017
Price Realised
USD 295,500
More Information
Josef Albers (1888-1976)
Study for Homage to the square "Negev"
signed with the artist's monogram and dated 'A63' (lower right); signed again, titled and dated again 'Study for Homage to the Square "Negev" Albers 1963' (on the reverse)
oil on Masonite
24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm.)
Painted in 1963.
Study for Homage to the square "Negev"
signed with the artist's monogram and dated 'A63' (lower right); signed again, titled and dated again 'Study for Homage to the Square "Negev" Albers 1963' (on the reverse)
oil on Masonite
24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm.)
Painted in 1963.
Josef Albers (1888-1976)
Study for Homage to the square "Negev"
signed with the artist's monogram and dated 'A63' (lower right); signed again, titled and dated again 'Study for Homage to the Square "Negev" Albers 1963' (on the reverse)
oil on Masonite
24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm.)
Painted in 1963.
Study for Homage to the square "Negev"
signed with the artist's monogram and dated 'A63' (lower right); signed again, titled and dated again 'Study for Homage to the Square "Negev" Albers 1963' (on the reverse)
oil on Masonite
24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm.)
Painted in 1963.
Arieh Sharon, Tel Aviv, acquired directly from the artist, circa 1960s
Private collection, Tel Aviv, by descent from the above
Anon. sale; Christie's, London, 25 June 2004, lot 174
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Private collection, Tel Aviv, by descent from the above
Anon. sale; Christie's, London, 25 June 2004, lot 174
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Joseph Albers’s Homage to the Square: Negev is the culmination of the artist’s rigorous examination into the science of color perception and its impact on the human mind. Painted in 1963, this work belongs to the celebrated Homage to the Square series, which Albers himself humbly called ‘platters to serve color.’ He declared: “In visual perception a color is almost never as it really is—as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art. In order to use color effectively it is necessary to recognize that color deceives continually” (J. Albers, quoted by F.A. Horowitz, Joseph Albers: To Open Eyes, London, 2006, p. 195).
Albers discovered a way to understand the true effect of color: he placed various chromatic values in a close proximity to each other, thus redefining how the colors were perceived. He worked in his studio, a virtual laboratory for the investigations of color, where he used a combination of warm and cool light bulbs and avoided natural light due to its changeable quality. The color was applied directly from the tube with a palette knife in order to minimize any surface effects.
Study for the Homage to the Square: Negev is an example of Albers’s iconic composition with its nested squares of warming hues of orange, saturated grey and cool aquamarine tones. Despite their rational nature, the Homages have an emotional content: it is reconfirmed by different titles given to the works in the series, such as Negev, a reference to the desert region of southern Israel. Through his method of careful color juxtaposition, Albers creates a painting that evokes a feeling of nature, of water and land, of sea and desert slowly enveloped in mist. At the same time, the Homages are pure statements of visual logic that give a feeling of the timeless and the absolute.
Joseph Albers’s work and his seminal course on color at Black Mountain College in North Carolina greatly affected Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly and Ray Johnson, who were among his students. Later, Albers became the head of the Department of Design at Yale University where the course reached its apex, culminating in the publication of his well-known volume Interaction of Color, which, in addition to the Homages, broke new ground in the field of color theory. After devoting the last twenty-five years of his life to the Homage to the Square series, Albers famously said: “I am not done yet. I have to try new variations”(J. Albers, quoted in W. Schmied, “Fifteen Notes on Joseph Albers” in Joseph Albers: the Mayor Gallery…, exh. cat., London, 1989, p. 8).
Albers discovered a way to understand the true effect of color: he placed various chromatic values in a close proximity to each other, thus redefining how the colors were perceived. He worked in his studio, a virtual laboratory for the investigations of color, where he used a combination of warm and cool light bulbs and avoided natural light due to its changeable quality. The color was applied directly from the tube with a palette knife in order to minimize any surface effects.
Study for the Homage to the Square: Negev is an example of Albers’s iconic composition with its nested squares of warming hues of orange, saturated grey and cool aquamarine tones. Despite their rational nature, the Homages have an emotional content: it is reconfirmed by different titles given to the works in the series, such as Negev, a reference to the desert region of southern Israel. Through his method of careful color juxtaposition, Albers creates a painting that evokes a feeling of nature, of water and land, of sea and desert slowly enveloped in mist. At the same time, the Homages are pure statements of visual logic that give a feeling of the timeless and the absolute.
Joseph Albers’s work and his seminal course on color at Black Mountain College in North Carolina greatly affected Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly and Ray Johnson, who were among his students. Later, Albers became the head of the Department of Design at Yale University where the course reached its apex, culminating in the publication of his well-known volume Interaction of Color, which, in addition to the Homages, broke new ground in the field of color theory. After devoting the last twenty-five years of his life to the Homage to the Square series, Albers famously said: “I am not done yet. I have to try new variations”(J. Albers, quoted in W. Schmied, “Fifteen Notes on Joseph Albers” in Joseph Albers: the Mayor Gallery…, exh. cat., London, 1989, p. 8).
Specialist note
This work is to be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work being prepared by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.