Harvard Art Museums > BR63.28: Homage to the Square: Against Deep Blue Paintings Collections Search Exit Deep Zoom Mode Zoom Out Zoom In Reset Zoom Full Screen Add to Collection Order Image Copy Link Copy Citation Citation"Homage to the Square: Against Deep Blue (Josef Albers) , BR63.28,” Harvard Art Museums collections online, Nov 21, 2024, https://hvrd.art/o/223024. The painting shows a large blue square which fills the picture space. Nesting within the blue square set near the bottom of the larger square is a smaller dark red square. Nesting within is a square of bright red set near the bottom of the larger dark red square. Gallery Text These two works (BR67.2 and BR63.28) from Albers’s series Homage to the Square exemplify his idea of art as a type of research. For each, Albers used the same basic format of nested squares, rendered in different media and sizes, to test various color combinations. He considered the series, which he returned to throughout his career, as a means to examine the logic of color and perception. Albers compiled his theories in the 1963 book Interaction of Color, a pedagogical text that quickly became — and remains today — an essential resource for art and design students. A teacher at the Bauhaus, the influential German design school eventually closed by the Nazis, Albers left Germany in 1933, when he was invited to teach at the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina. He subsequently taught at Yale, Harvard, and Pratt, among other schools. For American artists, designers, and architects, Albers served as an essential link to the pre–World War II avant-garde and the legacies of the Bauhaus. His experiments with materiality, opticality, and color reverberated in 1960s American art, from the pulsating surfaces of post-painterly abstraction to the perceptual experiments of conceptual art. Identification and Creation Object Number BR63.28 People Josef Albers, American (Bottrop, Germany 1888 - 1976 New Haven, Conn.) Title Homage to the Square: Against Deep Blue Classification Paintings Work Type painting Date 1955 Culture American Persistent Link https://hvrd.art/o/223024 Physical Descriptions Medium Oil on Masonite Dimensions 61 x 61 cm (24 x 24 in.) framed: 62.5 x 62.4 x 3 cm (24 5/8 x 24 9/16 x 1 3/16 in.) Inscriptions and Marks Signed: on recto, l.r.: A 55 inscription: verso, u.r., black felt tip, signed, in artist's hand: Homage to the Square: "Against Deep Blue" / Albers 1955 Provenance Recorded Ownership History Anonymous gift; to the Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1963 Acquisition and Rights Credit Line Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Anonymous gift Copyright © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Accession Year 1963 Object Number BR63.28 Division Modern and Contemporary Art Contact am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu Permissions The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request. Publication History Charles Werner Haxthausen, The Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Abbeville Press (New York, NY, 1980), p. 16, repr. Peter Nisbet and Emilie Norris, Busch-Reisinger Museum: History and Holdings, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1991), p. 90, ill. Exhibition History Works from the 20th Century Collection of the Busch-Reisinger, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 06/15/1980 - 09/01/1980; Wildenstein Gallery, New York, New York, 09/23/1980 - 10/24/1980 19th- and 20th-Century Works on Paper from the Permanent Collection, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, 02/08/1982 HAA 10 Survey Course (S421): The Western Tradition: Art Since the Renaissance (Fall 08 Rotation 1), Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/13/2008 - 10/19/2008 HAA 10 Survey Course (S421): The Western Tradition: Art Since the Renaissance (Fall 09 Rotation 1), Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 09/02/2009 - 10/12/2009 HAA 10 Survey Course (S421): The Western Tradition: Art Since the Renaissance (Fall 10 Rotation 1), Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 09/10/2010 - 10/09/2010 Re-View: European and American Art Since 1900, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 05/03/2011 - 06/01/2013 32Q: 1110 Mid-Century Abstraction II (Post-Painterly Abstraction), Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 07/14/2021 Subjects and Contexts The Bauhaus Related Articles In Gallery Talks, Creativity and Collaboration on Display September 12, 2019 Verification Level This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
