Josef Albers: Interaction

“Only appearances are not deceiving.”—Josef Albers

Josef Albers (1888–1976) was one of the leading pioneers of 20th-century modernism: he was an extraordinary teacher, writer, painter, and color theorist, who is best known for the Homages to the Square (painted 1950–76) and The Interaction of Color, published by Yale University Press in 1963.

This generously illustrated overview of Albers’s work, accompanying the first major exhibition on the artist in more than thirty years, features all aspects of his long, creative career. Beginning with Albers's time at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau, the publication follows the artist to America and describes major themes of his work there as well as the importance of his frequent travels to Mexico. Paintings, prints, furniture, household objects, works in glass, photographs, and pre-Columbian sculptures are beautifully reproduced and discussed by a team of experts. The juxtaposition of Renaissance sculptures and icons with paintings by Albers underlines the intellectual and spiritual dimensions of his art, and Albers’s influence on 1960s Minimalist art is also explored.

Including a comprehensive biography, the book convincingly demonstrates how this great artist transformed modern design by using line, color, surface, and space to challenge the perception of the viewer.