WEG III from White Embossings on Gray
1971
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
line-cut in gray with embossing on Roleaf wove paper
Dimensions
plate: 58.58 × 39.53 cm (23 1/16 × 15 9/16 in.) sheet: 66.5 × 51 cm (26 3/16 × 20 1/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Benjamin B. Smith
Accession Number
1985.47.15
Art Historical Context
**WEG III from *White Embossings on Gray*** Josef Albers, a Bauhaus artist and influential educator at Black Mountain College and Yale, created this print in 1971 as part of his late series *White Emboss on Gray*. Known for groundbreaking explorations of color perception in works like *Homage to the Square*, Albers here shifts to monochrome subtlety, using geometry and texture to challenge visual experience. At 58.58 × 39.53 cm (plate), this piece exemplifies his lifelong pursuit of optical illusions and perceptual shifts, produced just five years before his death. The medium—a line-cut in ...
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...