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Lot Essay
Spanning four feet in height and width, Homage to the Square: Veiled is a rare large-scale work from Josef Albers’ iconic series of Homage to the Square paintings. Acquired in 1974 from the Parisian gallery of Denise René—an importantly early champion of Op Art and Kinetic Art—it has been held in the same private collection for almost half a century. The painting consists of four nested concentric squares. They are set gently toward the canvas’ lower edge, and phase from bright viridian at its center to a border of burnt umber. The Veiled subtitle highlights an effect of transparency: the umber-green square adjoining the border creates the illusion of a sheer viridian film laid over the painting. The hues’ identities are made unstable, seeming to oscillate and glow in shifting tonal, focal and perspectival relation to one another. Such attention to the subtleties of chromatic interaction is the hallmark of Albers’ work, and the raison-d’être of the Homages. A smaller 1958 Study for Homage to the Square: Veiled is held in the North Carolina Museum of Art, a few hours’ drive from Black Mountain College, where Albers taught artists including Robert Rauschenberg during the late 1940s. Years later, Rauschenberg would say “I’m still learning what he taught me, because what he taught had to do with the entire visual world … I consider Albers the most important teacher I’ve ever had” (R. Rauschenberg, quoted in M. E. Harris, The Arts at Black Mountain College, Cambridge, MA, 1987, p. 126).
Homage to the Square: Veiled is among a highly select group of full-scale works that Albers produced. He reserved masonite panels of 48” by 48”—the largest square available in the medium—only for the perfected final state of Homages that he had progressively enlarged through sketches and studies, carefully examining how the altered scale affected the interfacing of colors. Each of these largest Homages, fine-tuned to precise and potent luminosity, represent the conclusion of long periods of work. The journey from the 24”-by-24” study for the present painting to its ultimate completion took three years. “As to the term ‘Study for Homage to the Square’,” Albers explained, “the stepping-up in size often demands intervals of time—sometimes through years—for continued and repeated observation as to possible improvements, intensification. All preparatory studies up to the largest and last execution—the ‘widest stage of performance’—I call ‘Studies’, which term is not used for the sizes of 40” and 48”” (J. Albers, correspondence with the Tate Gallery, May 16, 1966, quoted in R. Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery’s collection of modern art, other than works by British artists, London, 1981, p. 5). Other Homages of this impressive scale are held in museum collections worldwide, including Homage to the Square: Insert (1959, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington), Homage to the Square: On an early sky (1964, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra), Homage to the Square: Open outwards (1967, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin), and Homage to the Square: Soft spoken (1969, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).
The Homages occupied Albers from 1950, when he began teaching his color theory course at Yale University’s Department of Design, until his death in 1976. Far from mere academic exercises, they pulsate with light, tension and energy, and conjure an astounding array of effects from their strict format of squares within squares. Working from the center outward and with the board flat on a table, Albers would apply oil paint directly from the tube, spreading it with a palette knife. As each section was completed—he achieved their perfect edges without a ruler or masking tape—he would leave the paint to set for days or even weeks before applying the next color. Within this meticulous formula, by modulating the tones, temperatures and positions of different colors, Albers sought to shed light on the diffuse, multifarious and ultimately uncertain nature of human perception. In Veiled, are the squares stacked atop one another like sheets of tracing paper? Do they appear flat, or sink into tunnel-like depth, or project outward? The answers, Albers knew, lie less in the fixed properties of any given color than in the mind of the viewer. “In Albers’s paintings”, wrote Donald Judd, “there is very much a simple, suitable, and natural wholeness to the arrangement of squares within squares, which is one of the best ideas in the world, one which provided enormous versatility and complexity. This arrangement is easily at one with color. It’s amazing that it so quietly produces such brilliance” (D. Judd, “Josef Albers” (1991), in F. Judd & C. Murray, eds., Donald Judd Writings, New York, 2016, p. 735).
Homage to the Square: Veiled is among a highly select group of full-scale works that Albers produced. He reserved masonite panels of 48” by 48”—the largest square available in the medium—only for the perfected final state of Homages that he had progressively enlarged through sketches and studies, carefully examining how the altered scale affected the interfacing of colors. Each of these largest Homages, fine-tuned to precise and potent luminosity, represent the conclusion of long periods of work. The journey from the 24”-by-24” study for the present painting to its ultimate completion took three years. “As to the term ‘Study for Homage to the Square’,” Albers explained, “the stepping-up in size often demands intervals of time—sometimes through years—for continued and repeated observation as to possible improvements, intensification. All preparatory studies up to the largest and last execution—the ‘widest stage of performance’—I call ‘Studies’, which term is not used for the sizes of 40” and 48”” (J. Albers, correspondence with the Tate Gallery, May 16, 1966, quoted in R. Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery’s collection of modern art, other than works by British artists, London, 1981, p. 5). Other Homages of this impressive scale are held in museum collections worldwide, including Homage to the Square: Insert (1959, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington), Homage to the Square: On an early sky (1964, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra), Homage to the Square: Open outwards (1967, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin), and Homage to the Square: Soft spoken (1969, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).
The Homages occupied Albers from 1950, when he began teaching his color theory course at Yale University’s Department of Design, until his death in 1976. Far from mere academic exercises, they pulsate with light, tension and energy, and conjure an astounding array of effects from their strict format of squares within squares. Working from the center outward and with the board flat on a table, Albers would apply oil paint directly from the tube, spreading it with a palette knife. As each section was completed—he achieved their perfect edges without a ruler or masking tape—he would leave the paint to set for days or even weeks before applying the next color. Within this meticulous formula, by modulating the tones, temperatures and positions of different colors, Albers sought to shed light on the diffuse, multifarious and ultimately uncertain nature of human perception. In Veiled, are the squares stacked atop one another like sheets of tracing paper? Do they appear flat, or sink into tunnel-like depth, or project outward? The answers, Albers knew, lie less in the fixed properties of any given color than in the mind of the viewer. “In Albers’s paintings”, wrote Donald Judd, “there is very much a simple, suitable, and natural wholeness to the arrangement of squares within squares, which is one of the best ideas in the world, one which provided enormous versatility and complexity. This arrangement is easily at one with color. It’s amazing that it so quietly produces such brilliance” (D. Judd, “Josef Albers” (1991), in F. Judd & C. Murray, eds., Donald Judd Writings, New York, 2016, p. 735).