Josef Albers: Formulation: Articulation
Josef Albers, T. G. Rosenthal (Introduction), T. G. RosenthalBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
A sumptuously produced introduction to the ideas and methods of one of the most influential artists and theorists of the twentieth century.First issued in 1972 as a limited edition set of prints, Formulation: Articulation is being published in book form for the first time. Josef Albers drew on over forty years' work in a variety of media—woodcuts, sandblasted glass pictures, and oil paintings—for these poetic explorations of color and form. Created just four years before his death in 1976, the images can be seen as the summation of Albers's creative life.
Albers was a student and a teacher at the Bauhaus from 1920 to 1933, escaped to America and taught at Black Mountain College until 1949, and was chairman of the Department of Design at Yale University until 1958. As both artist and teacher he influenced innumerable artists, including Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Robert Rauschenberg. Albers's seminal text, Interaction of Color (1963), which was translated into eight languages, affected art teaching all over the world.
This book embodies all the elements of Albers's lifetime preoccupation with abstraction, color, and perception. He draws the viewer into a dynamic relationship with his work, showing how color can have deceptive and unpredictable effects, depending on how it interacts with other colors. The order of the 127 illustrations was carefully chosen by Albers so that they can be examined and appreciated for their visual interaction or as beautiful works of art in their own right. They appear alone on the page, in pairs, or sometimes four together.
The accompanying text includes key passages from Albers's own writings,printed on special foldout sections, and the introduction by noted critic T. G. Rosenthal includes comparative and contextual illustrations. 150 illustrations, 127 in color.
Synopsis
A sumptuously produced introduction to the ideas and methods of one of the most influential artists and theorists of the twentieth century.
First issued in 1972 as a limited edition set of prints, Formulation: Articulation is being published in book form for the first time. Josef Albers drew on over forty years' work in a variety of media—woodcuts, sandblasted glass pictures, and oil paintings—for these poetic explorations of color and form. Created just four years before his death in 1976, the images can be seen as the summation of Albers's creative life.
Albers was a student and a teacher at the Bauhaus from 1920 to 1933, escaped to America and taught at Black Mountain College until 1949, and was chairman of the Department of Design at Yale University until 1958. As both artist and teacher he influenced innumerable artists, including Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Robert Rauschenberg. Albers's seminal text, Interaction of Color (1963), which was translated into eight languages, affected art teaching all over the world.
This book embodies all the elements of Albers's lifetime preoccupation with abstraction, color, and perception. He draws the viewer into a dynamic relationship with his work, showing how color can have deceptive and unpredictable effects, depending on how it interacts with other colors. The order of the 127 illustrations was carefully chosen by Albers so that they can be examined and appreciated for their visual interaction or as beautiful works of art in their own right. They appear alone on the page, in pairs, or sometimes four together.
The accompanying text includes key passages from Albers's own writings,printed on special foldout sections, and the introduction by noted critic T. G. Rosenthal includes comparative and contextual illustrations. 150 illustrations, 127 in color.
Library Journal
This distinctive text was first published as a limited set of prints in 1972 by Albers, an influential art teacher and color theorist who hailed from the German Bauhaus school and held clear, no-nonsense views about his work. Readers will here encounter high-quality color illustrations, carefully ordered by Albers, that exemplify his arguments on the perception of color and abstract forms. The introduction by noted 20th-century art historian T.G. Rosenthal-a masterly essay that would be welcome to both serious scholars and general readers-offers an overview of the current scholarship on Albers and places his artwork within a larger historical perspective. Complete with a helpful bibliography, this text is noteworthy for combining visual elegance and solid scholarly analysis. While the price is high, it is fully justified by the beauty of the illustrations. It would complement exhibition catalogs, such as Josef + Anni Albers: Designs for Living or Albers's own seminal text, Interaction of Color. Enthusiastically recommended for all libraries that collect fine arts materials.-Katherine C. Adams, Yale Univ. Lib., New Haven, CT Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.