Pair 1972 Josef Albers Formulation Articulation Prints Harry Abrams Ives-Sillman

A brief understanding of Formulation Articulation by Josef Albers: Formulation : Articulation is a collection of 127 silkscreen plates created over a period of two years of concentrated work while Albers was near the end of his life. The images represent a gathering of over 4 decades of the artist’s investigation into color, perception, and abstraction. The prints display the optical possibilities of color and design. Formulation : Articulation can be seen as a summation of the artist’s pedagogy.

A brief biography on Josef Albers: Josef Albers (1888 – 1976) was a legendary teacher and color theorist. Through his teachings he introduced a generation of American artists to the European modernist concepts of the Bauhaus. He was widely known for his experimentation with color interaction and geometric shapes. Albers’ writing, work, and teaching profoundly influenced a generation of artists and visual arts instruction the world over. The artist is best known for his iconic “Homage to the Square” series (1949–76), which features nested squares of varying colors and explores how different juxtapositions of form and hue affect viewers’ perceptions and emotions. Albers formalized and expanded upon his theories in his seminal 1963 book Interaction of Color. He was closely involved with the original Bauhaus and moved to the United States when the school was closed by Nazis in 1933. In the U.S., Albers taught at the experimental Black Mountain College as well as at Yale, where his teachings influenced generations of American artists. His work has been exhibited in cities around the world and belongs in the collections of institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago, the British Museum, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others.