Josef Albers (1888-1976)
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Josef Albers (1888-1976)

Homage to the Square: "Contralto"

Details
Josef Albers (1888-1976)
Homage to the Square: "Contralto"
signed with the artist's monogram and dated '57' (lower right), signed, inscribed, titled and dated 'Study to [sic] Homage to the Square: "Contralto" Albers 57' and further annotated for colour (on the reverse)
oil on masonite
30 x 30in. (76.2 x 76.2cm.)
Painted in 1957
Provenance
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York (#5838).
Xavier Hufkens, Brussels (ALBE-020-1957).
Galerie Thomas, Munich (304134).
Galer<->ia Elvira González, Madrid (E-14).
Anon. sale, Christie's London, 30 June 1988, lot 616.
Anon. sale, Sotheby's London, 21 March 1996, Lot 47.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
Exhibited
Munster, Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Albers, April-June 1968, no. 7. This exhibition later travelled to Basel, Kunsthalle, June-July; Lubeck, Overbeck-Gesellschaft, August- September; Karlsruhe, Badischer Kunstverein September-October; Bonn, Rheinisches Landesmuseum, November-December; Munich, Villa Stuck, December 1968-January 1969 and Berlin, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, January-February 1969.
Brussels, Xavier Hufkens, Josef Albers, September-October 1999.
Special notice
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.
Sale room notice
Please note that this lot is to be included in the forthcoming Josef Albers catalogue raisonné being prepared by the Anni and Josef Albers Foundation.

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Lot Essay

Josef Albers' Homage to the Square serie, or "Platters to serve colour" as he often referred to them, "were meant to be vehicles, to present something greater than themselves. Like monks, they should be modest and self-effacing, drawing minimal attention to their own corporality; like priests, they must preach the qualities of their subject passionately and vehemently, and sway the heavens. Their purpose was clear: to convince others of colour's magic and power, of the wonders that their creator had uncovered in his lifelong search for truth, even if that truth was to imply the realization that everything is relative and in constant flux" (N. F. Weber, quoted in G. Alviani, Josef Albers, Milan 1988, p. 10). However the artist's programmatic investigation of colour was also informed by an ethical impulse. When questioned on the formalism of his work, Albers, in a television interview in 1960, stated "I considered ethics and aesthetics to be one". For him the relations of colours to one another mirrored the relationship of the individual to society. "Colour, in my opinion, behaves like man - in two distinct ways: first in self-realisation and then in the realisation of relationships with others... In other words, one must combine both being an individual and being a member of society' (J. Albers, quoted in G. Alviani (ed.), Josef Albers, Milan 1988, pp. 235-36).

In the present work the chromatic interactions are pronounced. Four squares are arranged concentrically on the ground, deployed as the vehicle for a visual dialectic between colour, sign and support. The title of the work is subtly misleading, as is the straightforwardness of the composition. In centring the square to the lower horizontal edge a tension is created. The ensuing planar dislocation activates the relativity of the colours, allowing their interrelation to predominate the picture's form. Homage to the Square is of course a study of colour, unique in post-war abstraction in its empirical-spiritual rigour.

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