Day + Night III from Day and Night: Homage to the Square
1963
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
color lithograph from a portfolio of 10 lithographs on Arches wove paper
Dimensions
image: 40 x 40 cm (15 3/4 x 15 3/4 in.) sheet: 47.6 x 51.7 cm (18 3/4 x 20 3/8 in.)
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Dorothy J. and Benjamin B. Smith
Accession Number
1983.18.89.3
Art Historical Context
Josef Albers' *Day + Night III* (1963) is a captivating color lithograph from the portfolio *Day and Night: Homage to the Square*, set of 10 prints on fine Arches wove paper. Part of Albers' lifelong series *Homage to the Square*—begun in the 1950s—this square-format work (40 x 40 cm image) exemplifies his pioneering exploration of color perception. Albers, a Bauhaus master and influential teacher at Black Mountain College, used nested concentric squares to demonstrate how adjacent colors interact, creating illusions of light, depth, and movement. Here, subtle shifts evoke the transition from ...
About the Artist
Josef Albers
Josef Albers, born on March 19, 1888, in Bottrop, Westphalia, into a Roman Catholic family of craftsmen, received early practical training from his father, Lorenzo Albers, a housepainter and carpenter, mastering skills in engraving glass, plumbing, wiring, and printmaking. After working as a schoolteacher in Bottrop from 1908 to 1913, he trained as an art teacher at the Königliche Kunstschule in B...