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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artist:Josef Albers (1888 - 1976) German
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title:Homage to the Square: R-NW IV
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date created:1966
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materials:Oil on masonite
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measurements:122.00 x 122.00 cm
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased 1978
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accession number:GMA 2030
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gallery:
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subject:
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artwork photographed by:Antonia Reeve
Josef Albers
Josef Albers
Albers was born in Germany and taught at the Bauhaus art school, alongside Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, Wassily Kandinsky and others. He emigrated to the USA in 1933, after the Nazis closed the Bauhaus. In America Albers taught at the influential Black Mountain College until 1949 and later became...