Homage to the square: Autumn echo
1966
Medium
oil and synthetic polymer paint on composition board
Measurements
122.8 × 122.8 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with the assistance of the National Art Gallery & Cultural Centre Appeal Women's Council and the National Gallery Society of Victoria, 1967
© Josef Albers/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Licensed by VISCOPY, Sydney
Gallery location
Contemporary Art gallery
Level 3, NGV International
About this work
Josef Albers created this work at the height of his fame as an artist and theorist of abstraction. He began his famous series Homage to the Square in 1949 to systematically explore colour reactions like a scientist and to demonstrate, he said, ‘the discrepancy between physical fact and psychic effect’. Albers did this by reducing composition and design right down to the barest of bones, placing coloured square within coloured square and repeating this geometric image in painting after painting. The only variant was his choice of colours, which evoked specific atmospheric moods, like musical nocturnes. This work was purchased from the influential exhibition Two Decades of American Painting, which opened at the NGV in June 1967.
Artwork Details
Inscription
incised in paint l.r.: A 66 (66 underlined)
Accession Number
1772-5
Department
International Painting
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Dame Carol Colburn-Grigor CBE through Metal Manufactures Limited
Subjects (general)
Nonrepresentational Art
Subjects (specific)
geometric abstraction geometric shape linear forms square (shape) yellow colours
Movements
Hard-edge
Frame
The frame on Homage to the square: Autumn echo, is contemporary with the painting, possibly made by the artist. It is formed from stainless steel edging, flat at the side with a half-round (rolled) leading edge. The section is machine-formed from thin sheet and has been mitred and fixed together at the corners to form a solid, square structure. The rounded edge becomes the rebate of the frame. The frame is fitted with timber strips on the inner surface to create a firm fit for the painting, which is painted on the textured side of a hardboard sheet. The painting is secured in the frame with a wooden strainer at the reverse, to which the frame is attached with three stainless steel slotted, oval head, countersunk screws to each side.
Stainless steel edging like this was used on the edges of laminate topped tables and work benches in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
The mounting and framing of his paintings was extremely important to Albers. He framed his earlier works himself, in painted wooden frames, mounting them with intricately fitted wooden strips so as to fit the panels securely into the rabbet of the frame. At one time, Albers built the wooden frames himself, sometimes in combination with narrow metal strips. He later (mid-1950’s) chose a minimal metal strip frame with a wooden strainer for all his paintings. Josef Albers: His paintings, their materials, technique, and treatment. Patricia Sherwin Garland. JAIC 1983, volume 22, number 2, Article 2 (pp 62 to 67).
The painting was cleaned and retouched in 2016/2017.
Frame Details
Framemaker
Unknown - 20th century
Date
c.1966
Materials
stainless steel edging section, stainless steel slotted, oval head, countersunk screws, timber
Frame Condition
good original condition