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Print - Introitus

Introitus

  • Object:

    Print

  • Place of origin:

    USA, USA (made)

  • Date:

    1942 (made)

  • Artist/Maker:

    Albers, Josef, born 1888 - died 1976 (artist)

  • Materials and Techniques:

    Lithograph on paper

  • Credit Line:

    Given by the Josef Albers Foundation

  • Museum number:

    E.18-1994

  • Gallery location:

    Prints & Drawings Study Room, level E, case MP, shelf 288

  • Image in copyright

Josef Albers became one of the most influential artists of the 20th century avant-garde.
He is best known for his later works, but his systematic presentation of spatial ambivalence and paradox, made through endless variations on geometric themes and juxtapositions of colour, went through many articulations before he arrived at his characteristic, hard-edged rectangles within rectangles of flat colour.

Throughout the 1940s, while teaching. at Black Mountain College in California, he made frequent trips to Mexico. He was inspired by the architecture and artefacts seen there and absorbed their abstract, formal qualities into his prints made during the 1940s. After experimenting with modulated line, in a series of drypoints, Albers went on to make a series of lithographs collectively titled 'Graphic Tectonic' with very precise linear structures but, which through repeated and closely drawn parallel lines, and the use of right-angles, create powerfully ambiguous visual illusions of space and volume.

Physical description

The image is an outline of a rectangle, with the longer sides vertical (so portrait format); the space inside the rectangle is articulated with a series of ever decreasing rectangles of the same proportions as the outer one. The shape is repeated 11 times, leaving a small blank rectangle in the centre. the lines defining the rectangles are of two different widths, and of course, are closer together on the longer, vertical sides.

Place of Origin

USA, USA (made)

Date

1942 (made)

Artist/maker

Albers, Josef, born 1888 - died 1976 (artist)

Materials and Techniques

Lithograph on paper

Marks and inscriptions

Albers 42 Introitus
29/30

Dimensions

Height: 35.9 cm printed surface, Width: 17.9 cm printed surface, Height: 60.3 cm sheet, Width: 48.2 cm sheet

Descriptive line

Josef Albers: lithograph: Introitus. From the group of 8 plates 'Graphic Tectonic. 1942

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

François Bucher (with captions by Albers); Despite Straight Lines. New Haven and London, 1961. illus. pp19-31 Eugen Gomringer: Josef Albers. New York 1968. p.75-6. illus. pp 84-90 Werner Spies: Josef Albers. Stuttgart, 1971. p.36. illus. pp30-32 Getulio Alviani: Josef Albers. Milan, 1988. illus. plates 70-77

Exhibition History

A complete list of exhibitions of the work of Josef Albers up to 1988 is published in Getulio Alviani [Ed.] 'Josef Albers', Milan, 1988. (South Bank Centre, Touring Exhibition 04/02/1994-05/11/1994)

Production Note

One of a group of eight plates collectively titled 'Graphic Tectonic' . The museum has five of the eight.

Subjects depicted

Ambiguity, spatial

Categories

Prints

Collection code

PDP

Qr_O179310
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