Albers' teaching methodology, prioritizing practical experience and vision in design, had a profound impact on the development of postwar Western visual art, while his book Interaction of Color, published in 1963, is considered a seminal work on color theory.[3] In addition to being a teacher, Albers was an active abstract painter and theorist, best known for his series Homage to the Square, in which he explored chromatic interactions with nested squares, meticulously recording the colors used. He also created murals, such as those for the Corning Glass Building and the Time & Life Building in New York City. In 1970, he and his wife lived in Orange, Connecticut where they continued to work in their private studio. In 1971, Albers was first living artist to be given a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.[4] Albers died in his sleep on March 25, 1976 at the Yale New Haven Hospital after being admitted for a possible heart ailment.
Accomplished as a designer, photographer, typographer, printmaker, and poet, Albers is best remembered for his work as an abstract painter and theorist. He favored a very disciplined approach to composition, especially in the hundreds of paintings and prints that make up the series Homage to the Square. In this rigorous series, begun in 1949, Albers explored chromatic interactions with nested squares. Usually painting on Masonite, he used a palette knife with oil colors and often recorded the colors he used on the back of his works. Each painting consists of either three or four squares of solid planes of color nested within one another, in one of four different arrangements and in square formats ranging from 406406 mm to 1.221.22 m.[20]
First, it should be learned that one and the same color evokes innumerable readings. Instead of mechanically applying or merely implying laws and rules of color harmony, distinct color effects are produced-through recognition of the interaction of color-by making, for instance, two very different colors look alike, or nearly alike.
(*Josef Albers Homage to the Square, 1951:
Source: http: //www.albersfoundation.org/art/josef-albers/paintings/homages-to-the-square/#slide13)
Pan-Am Building was designed by Walter Gropius who was a teacher at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and founder of Bauhaus. The lobby of the former Pan-Am Building was a collaboration space for two giants with roots in Bauhaus. (Mural paintings have been removed since 2000)
(* Josef Albers Manhattan, 1963 source:
Http://www.albersfoundation.org/art/josef-albers/architecture/#slide7)
In the physical book, the plates served as exercises that reproduced the illusions and perceptions of color interactions described in the text. The digital edition includes interactive versions of those plates plus 60 more, bringing the total to 122. The website also allows readers to zoom in on the plates and rearrange the colored shapes, add highlights and notes to the texts, access in-text glossary terms, watch plate video commentaries, view videos of Albers and his students, and create and share their own plates.
Each exercise represents the result of a specific color exercise dealing with some aspect of color interaction or relativity. Moving from simple to complex, from left to right, and top to bottom, many exercises build upon the results of the ones that precede them.
Albers is best remembered for his work as an abstract painter and theorist. Most famous of all are the hundreds of paintings and prints that make up the series Homage to the Square. In this rigorous series, begun in 1949, Albers explored chromatic interactions with flat colored squares arranged inside each other. This was a union of geometric abstraction with experiments in color.
Parents need to know that Interaction of Color by Josef Albers is a digital version of the famous 1963 color-education book of the same name with interactive elements and video commentaries. The free, sample-only version contains a chapter, an interactive color "plate," and other features such as a brief video of an expert giving color commentary. The full $9.99 version includes 125 images of color interactions and 60 interactive color plates. Some of the content can be fun for any age, but the formal lessons and book content require teen- or adult-level reading and patience.
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