Anglia Ruskin University

Josef Albers Screenprints

Date: 25 April - 23 May 2009
Time: 9am-9pm Monday to Friday, 10am-5pm Saturday

Josef Albers (1888-1976) exerted an enormous influence on modern art in Europe and America. He taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar until its closure by the Nazis in 1933 and went on to become one of the most influential art teachers in the USA, firstly at the Black Mountain College and later at Yale. He is best known for his series of paintings, lithographs and screenprints, 'Homage to the Square,' and for his treatise, 'Interaction Of Color', 1963.

This exhibition, drawn from a portfolio of screenprints produced in close collaboration with the artist in 1972, includes variants of many of his most famous images and exemplifies the development of his ideas. Albers worked in series creating multiple variations on themes. In these, he explores optical contradictions; lines are placed closer together or further apart to create movement; forms appear simultaneously flat and three-dimensional; pictorial planes unfold first one way and then another. Each of these series is well represented in this selection of 60-70 high-quality screenprints.

Image: Josef Albers, Homage to the Square
From the Formulation: Articulation portfolio, 1972
Image size: 25.4 x 25.4cm
© The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn and DACS, London 2009

A Hayward Touring exhibition from Southbank Centre, London on behalf of Arts Council England.