Shrine

Description

These three lithographs by Josef Albers were made during his time as a faculty member at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, an important institution for the development of modernist art in the United States. Albers had previously taught at the Bauhaus school of design, architecture, and applied arts in Germany, before the Nazi takeover forced him to emigrate. At Black Mountain, he continued to teach the Bauhaus curriculum, pushing students to notice that things as varied as cigarette box labels and a handcrafted chair were designed with equal care. Such attention to the construction of things can be seen in these prints, in which simple black lines and white spaces are used to represent forms that look architectural. Though abstract, these minimal forms are reminiscent of mounds, pyramids, and shrines that Albers and his wife visited during their travels to pre-Columbian  archaeological sites.