Segments
Josef Albers
JOSEF ALBERS, 1934. LINOCUT PRINT ON JAPANESE PAPER.
When the Bauhaus closed in 1933 under the order of the Nazi party, Josef and Anni Albers fled Germany to America where they became the first permanent faculty at the Black Mountain College. A radical centre for artistic education that became a breeding ground for so many of the figures who defined American modernity, the Albers were a central part of the cultural and creative ecosystem. Both in Germany, and in America, Josef Albers primary concern was color, and his ‘Homage to a Square’ series was produced throughout his life and laid the foundation for contemporary color theory. Yet coming to rural North Carolina from the flatlands of Weimar seemed to open up a new geometric, formal interest in Albers. As illustrated with this print, made just a year after his arrival, he explores how organic curves and gentle forms play with sharp, rigid lines. Produced in monochrome, this is a work uninterested in color and fascinated with shape, a work that represents new possibilities in the face of such devastation.