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Lot Essay
"An element added to an element must produce besides its sum at least one interesting relationship. The more different relationships that arise and the more intensive they are, the more the elements enhance one another, the more valuable the result" (J. Albers, quoted in Josef Albers, exh. cat., Mayor Gallery, London, 1989, p.21).
Painted in 1963, Josef Albers' striking Homage to the Square: Mild Day is the result of the artist's rigorous examination into the aesthetic effects of color. According to Albers, color was the most important and yet misunderstood of all of art's formal elements, and he devoted much of his career to exploring the science of color perception through his celebrated Homage to the Square series. Rendered on a majestic scale, this particular Homage is one of Albers' iconic compositions with its nested squares of warm nuances of soft and warm orange, giving it both a soothing and lambent aura.
Compelled to examine the different approaches in which the viewer perceives and experiences color, Albers' renowned series, Homage to the Square, plays on the mastery of both color and form. With the ambition to examine color relationships, as well as their emotive and psychological impacts, Albers composed rigorous squares of color, balanced one inside the other. In a relatively simple and stable format, he applied color directly from the tube with a palette knife, in a restrained and even manner that minimizes any surface effect. Pristine and elegant in their refinement, Albers' paintings are extremely rational constructs, pure statements of visual logic that possess an air of the classic, the absolute, the timeless.
Albers' interest in color began when he was a student at the newly formed Bauhaus in the early 1920s. He approached his composition with the utmost precision, treating his studio as a virtual laboratory for his investigations into color. Often starting with the innermost square and working outwards, taking care to avoid overlapping between colors, and leaving a thin band of the white ground exposed around the border. He would use an alternating combination of warm and cool light bulbs while working, avoiding natural light due to its changeable quality. In contrast to this highly impersonal and geometrical framework, he achieved a remarkable range of visual moods.
He embarked on his signature series of Homage to the Square paintings in 1950, and devoted himself with enormous passion to this pared-down format until his death in 1976. Employing the repetitive format of several nested squares, Albers achieved an enormous range of emotive effects through his carefully nuanced combinations of hues. Albers described how these varying palettes created "different climates" in each painting, so that the "character and feeling alters from painting to painting without any additional 'hand writing' or, so called, texture" (J. Albers, quoted in Josef Albers, exh. cat., Mayor Gallery, London, 1989, p. 31).
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.
Painted in 1963, Josef Albers' striking Homage to the Square: Mild Day is the result of the artist's rigorous examination into the aesthetic effects of color. According to Albers, color was the most important and yet misunderstood of all of art's formal elements, and he devoted much of his career to exploring the science of color perception through his celebrated Homage to the Square series. Rendered on a majestic scale, this particular Homage is one of Albers' iconic compositions with its nested squares of warm nuances of soft and warm orange, giving it both a soothing and lambent aura.
Compelled to examine the different approaches in which the viewer perceives and experiences color, Albers' renowned series, Homage to the Square, plays on the mastery of both color and form. With the ambition to examine color relationships, as well as their emotive and psychological impacts, Albers composed rigorous squares of color, balanced one inside the other. In a relatively simple and stable format, he applied color directly from the tube with a palette knife, in a restrained and even manner that minimizes any surface effect. Pristine and elegant in their refinement, Albers' paintings are extremely rational constructs, pure statements of visual logic that possess an air of the classic, the absolute, the timeless.
Albers' interest in color began when he was a student at the newly formed Bauhaus in the early 1920s. He approached his composition with the utmost precision, treating his studio as a virtual laboratory for his investigations into color. Often starting with the innermost square and working outwards, taking care to avoid overlapping between colors, and leaving a thin band of the white ground exposed around the border. He would use an alternating combination of warm and cool light bulbs while working, avoiding natural light due to its changeable quality. In contrast to this highly impersonal and geometrical framework, he achieved a remarkable range of visual moods.
He embarked on his signature series of Homage to the Square paintings in 1950, and devoted himself with enormous passion to this pared-down format until his death in 1976. Employing the repetitive format of several nested squares, Albers achieved an enormous range of emotive effects through his carefully nuanced combinations of hues. Albers described how these varying palettes created "different climates" in each painting, so that the "character and feeling alters from painting to painting without any additional 'hand writing' or, so called, texture" (J. Albers, quoted in Josef Albers, exh. cat., Mayor Gallery, London, 1989, p. 31).
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.