Transformation A
Print
1950 (printed)
1950 (printed)
| Artist/Maker |
Josef Albers became one of the most influential figures of the 20th century avant-garde, with his systematic presentation of spatial ambivalence and paradox, made through endless variations on geometric themes and juxtapositions of colour in the format of rectangle and square.
Throughout the 1940s Albers developed line-based structures into increasingly complex forms. Right-angles and parallel lines give way to converging or diverging lines and variable angles, and so spatial illusion also becomes more complex. By 1950 when he came to make a series of images titled 'Transformations', some of the images began to look like diagrams of stellar explosions.
About this time also he began making prints from mechanically engraved plastic or metal and sometimes as blind relief intaglios. By using a mechanical means of engraving his intention was to make the line as impersonal and therefore, as purely functional, as possible, By printing others blind, the line itself is partialy dematerialised, its own visibility rendered ambivalent
Throughout the 1940s Albers developed line-based structures into increasingly complex forms. Right-angles and parallel lines give way to converging or diverging lines and variable angles, and so spatial illusion also becomes more complex. By 1950 when he came to make a series of images titled 'Transformations', some of the images began to look like diagrams of stellar explosions.
About this time also he began making prints from mechanically engraved plastic or metal and sometimes as blind relief intaglios. By using a mechanical means of engraving his intention was to make the line as impersonal and therefore, as purely functional, as possible, By printing others blind, the line itself is partialy dematerialised, its own visibility rendered ambivalent
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Transformation A (assigned by artist) |
| Materials and techniques | machine engraving on brass, printed onto paper |
| Brief description | Josef Albers: machine engraving on brass: Transformation A. 1950 |
| Physical description | composition of white lines against dark, almost matt, ground. The linear pattern suggests a exploding, stellar shape defined by lightly drawn straight lines, optical illusions are set up and the arrangement of multiple planes within the construction is ambiguous. |
| Dimensions |
|
| Styles | |
| Production type | Limited edition |
| Copy number | 11/20 |
| Marks and inscriptions | Albers '50 Transformation A
11/20 (signed and dated in pencil, inscribed with title and number) |
| Credit line | Given by the Josef Albers Foundation |
| Production | One of a set of four prints entitled 'Transformations A-D'. |
| Summary | Josef Albers became one of the most influential figures of the 20th century avant-garde, with his systematic presentation of spatial ambivalence and paradox, made through endless variations on geometric themes and juxtapositions of colour in the format of rectangle and square. Throughout the 1940s Albers developed line-based structures into increasingly complex forms. Right-angles and parallel lines give way to converging or diverging lines and variable angles, and so spatial illusion also becomes more complex. By 1950 when he came to make a series of images titled 'Transformations', some of the images began to look like diagrams of stellar explosions. About this time also he began making prints from mechanically engraved plastic or metal and sometimes as blind relief intaglios. By using a mechanical means of engraving his intention was to make the line as impersonal and therefore, as purely functional, as possible, By printing others blind, the line itself is partialy dematerialised, its own visibility rendered ambivalent |
| Associated objects | |
| Bibliographic reference | Eugen Gomringer: Josef Albers. New York, 1968, p.120
Werner Spies: Josef Albers. Stuttgart, 1971.P.36
Getulio Alviani [Ed.] Josef Albers. Milan, 1988. (illus. pls. 83, 85, 87, 88) |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.38-1994 |
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| Record created | January 9, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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