Josef Albers

Homage to the Square: R-NW IV

About this artwork

This painting is from Albers's Homage to the Square series, which he began in 1950, when he was sixty-two, and continued until his death in 1976. These works explore the effects colours have on each other, reducing painting to its most basic constituents - colour and form. All of the paintings in the series are similar in composition to this work, consisting of three or four squares placed inside each other. Albers chose the square as he felt it was the shape that most emphasised the man-made quality of painting, thus distinguishing art from nature.

Updated before 2020

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Josef Albers

Josef Albers