Title
Homage to the square: early fusion
1966
Artist
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Details
- Date
- 1966
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- oil on hardboard
- Dimensions
- 121.5 x 121.5 cm board; 123.5 x 123.5 x 3.2 cm frame
- Signature & date
Signed and dated l.r., scratched into paint "A 66" and u.l. verso board, black fibre-tipped pen "...Albers' 1966".
- Credit
- W.H. Nolan and J.B. Pye Bequest Funds 1967
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- OO1.1967
- Copyright
- © Estate of Josef Albers//Bild-Kunst. Copyright Agency
- Artist information
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Josef Albers
Works in the collection
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About
Josef Albers was a student and later a professor at the Bauhaus art school in Germany before it was closed in 1933 under pressure from the Nazi regime. Albers emigrated to the United States in 1933, where he became an influential writer, painter and colour theorist while teaching at Black Mountain College and later at Yale University. He commenced his celebrated 'Homage to the square' series in 1950, using a strict configuration of quadrilateral shapes to investigate perception and the optical effects of colour. Albers would paint more than 2000 iterations of the composition over the next 25 years, continuing until his death in 1976.
'Homage to the square: early fusion' was acquired from the 1967 touring exhibition 'Two decades of American painting', along with Morris Louis’s 1958 work 'Ayin'. This influential exhibition was presented at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in association with the International Program of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. -
Exhibition history
Shown in 3 exhibitions
Two decades of American painting, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan, 15 Oct 1966–27 Nov 1966
Two decades of American painting, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Kyoto, 10 Dec 1966–22 Jan 1967
Two decades of American painting, Lalit Kala Gallery, India, 28 Mar 1967–30 Apr 1967
Two decades of American painting, National Gallery of Victoria [Swanston Street], Melbourne, 06 Jun 1967–09 Jul 1967
Two decades of American painting, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 26 Jul 1967–20 Aug 1967
Hard Edge, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 07 Aug 1999–24 Oct 1999
Some mysterious process, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 01 Jun 2020–13 Sep 2020
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Bibliography
Referenced in 9 publications
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Josef Albers, Interaction of color, New Haven, 1963.
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Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales picturebook, Sydney, 1972, 62 (colour illus.).
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Edmund Capon AM, OBE and Jan Meek (Editors), Portrait of a Gallery, 'Contemporary Art', pg. 61-69, Sydney, 1984, 64 (colour illus.).
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Susan Lee (Editor), Art investigator, ''Action and Reaction' - Art and Optics', pg. 226-227, Melbourne, 1998, 226 (colour illus.).
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Elwyn Lynn, Bulletin, 'The Square Market', pg. 40, Sydney, 09 Sep 1967, 40.
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Waldo Rasmussen, Two decades of American painting, Melbourne, 1967, (illus.). cat.no. 1
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Donald Williams and Barbara Vance Wilson, From caves to canvas: an introduction to western art (Second edition), 'From the Inside: Abstract Expressionism and New Sculpture', pg.295-312, Sydney, 1998, 307, 308 (colour illus.).
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Donald Williams and Barbara Vance Wilson, From caves to canvas: an introduction to western art, 'From the Inside: Abstract Expressionism', pg.249-262, Sydney, 1992, 262 (colour illus.).
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1967 Acquisitions, Sydney, 1967, 33. cat.no. 45
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Provenance
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York/New York/United States of America, Purchased by the AGNSW from Sidney Janis Gallery 1967. Purchased through the Museum of Modern Art, New York.