An exquisite work titled Homage to the Square: “Suspended” by Josef Albers highlights Bonhams’ Post-War & Contemporary Works of Art auction. It is estimated to fetch $300,000 – 500,000. Known as “The Square Man,” Albers made more than 1,000 paintings during his Homage to the Square series, dating from 1950 until his death in 1976. His works reveals an innovative investigation into artistic abstraction and the power of color – its ability to communicate and mutate for each viewer.
Painted in 1953, “Suspended,” in particular, represents Albers’ 25-year examination of color and its optical and compositional components. In 1950, Albers began to explore his theories on color through his Homage to the Square series. Such unwrapping of artistic theory can be seen in “Suspended”, where Albers pushes to explain and understand the subjective nature of color – how it changes and communicates with differing shades.
When asked about the importance placed on the viewer, Albers noted that they are the vessel in which art is processed, whereas painterly elements “demonstrate that true mobility is not achieved by making an object move but making an object that makes us move – besides moving us.”
Through his teachings Albers introduced generations of American artists to the Modernist concepts of the Bauhaus, while his experimentation with the interactions of color and geometric shapes transformed the Contemporary art scene altogether.
