Josef Albers

Estimate

400,000 - 600,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

Josef Albers
Homage to the Square: Late Forest
signed with the artist's monogram and dated 61; signed, titled and dated 1961
oil on masonite
40 by 40 in. 101.6 by 101.6 cm.

Provenance

Sidney Janis Gallery, New York
The Collection of Samuel and Luella Maslon (acquired from the above in 1962)
Sotheby's, New York, May 16, 2002, Lot 144
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale

Exhibited

Palm Springs Desert Museum, Collector's Choice, January - February 1976

Catalogue Note

On My “Homage to the Square"

Seeing several of these paintings next to each other

makes it obvious that each painting

is an instrumentation in its own.

This means that they are all of different palettes,

and, therefore, so to speak, of different climates.

Choice of the colors used, as well as their order, is

aimed at interaction –

influencing and changing each other forth and back.

Thus, character and feeling alter from painting to painting

without any additional “hand writing”

or, so-called, texture.

Though the underlying symmetrical and quasi-concentric

order of squares remains the same in all paintings

- in proportion and placement-

these same squares group or single themselves,

connect and separate in many different ways.

In consequences, they move forth and back, in and out,

and grown up and down and near and far, as well as enlarged and

diminished.

All this, to proclaim color autonomy

as a means of a plastic organization.

Josef Albers