White Front
Josef Albers
Description
March 28, 2009
What color is is of less concern than what it does.
Painting is color acting.
—Josef Albers
Painted during the artist’s final year as chair of the Department of Design at the Yale University School of Art, White Front exemplifies Albers’ exacting investigation into how we perceive color in relationship to other colors. Albers carefully planned his compositions in advance and then—under highly controlled studio conditions—applied his unmixed paints directly from the tube with a palette knife, meticulously documenting his working process and materials on the back of the painting’s Masonite support. Simultaneously systematic and poetic, Albers’ color studies eventually led to the publication, in 1963, of his influential book Interaction of Color.
Subject Matter:
One of the "Variants" that Albers began creating in the late forties. The "Variants" were visual experiements with the psychic effect of color. Albers applied paint directly from the tube.
Physical Description:
A white rectangle stretches from near the left edge to the right edge. It has two small verticle ochre rectangles close to either end. Around the white rectangle are sections of yellow and ochre.
Usage Rights:
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit https://umma.umich.edu/request-image/ for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.