WEG VI 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
1985.47.16
Art Historical Context
Josef Albers, a pioneering Bauhaus artist and influential teacher at Black Mountain College and Yale University created *WEG VI from White Embossings on Gray in 1971, near the end of his prolific career. This print belongs a series where Albers shifted from his iconic color explorations—like the *Homage to the Square* paintings—to monochromatic forms, emphasizing perception through subtle tonal contrasts and texture. At age 73, Albers continued probing how viewers interpret visual relationships, a core theme of his life's work. The medium—a line-cut in gray with embossing on Roleaf wove paper...
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...