Homage to the Square: Stele and Foliage
Josef Albers
(American, born in Germany, 1888–1976)
1964
Medium/TechniqueOil on Masonite
DimensionsFramed: 41.6 x 41.6 x 2.9 cm (16 3/8 x 16 3/8 x 1 1/8 in.)
Credit LineGift of Estrellita Karsh in memory of Yousuf Karsh and in honor of Jen Mergel
Accession number2011.476
On View
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Joseph Albers was a renowned teacher, and his famous course at Yale University on color theory was enormously influential, culminating in his seminal 1963 publication, Interaction of Color. While at Yale, Albers also embarked on his Homage to the Square series of paintings and prints. These works of meticulously measured nested squares explore how the experience of color—whether it advances or recedes, is warm or cool—is both highly subjective and impacted by factors such as hue or adjacency to other colors.
Provenance1966, artist to Estrellita Karsh; 2011, Estrellita Karsh gift to MFA. (Accession Date: September 21, 2011)Copyright© The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
