Accession Number
1958/2.72

Title
White Front

Artist(s)
Josef Albers

Artist Nationality
American (North American)

Object Creation Date
1958

Medium & Support
oil on masonite

Dimensions
24 1/4 in. x 27 5/8 in. x 1 1/4 in. ( 61.6 cm x 70.17 cm x 3.18 cm )

Credit Line
Museum Purchase

Label copy
March 28, 2009
What color is is of less concern than what it does.
Painting is color acting.
—Josef Albers
Painted during the artist’s final year as chair of the Department of Design at the Yale University School of Art, White Front exemplifies Albers’ exacting investigation into how we perceive color in relationship to other colors. Albers carefully planned his compositions in advance and then—under highly controlled studio conditions—applied his unmixed paints directly from the tube with a palette knife, meticulously documenting his working process and materials on the back of the painting’s Masonite support. Simultaneously systematic and poetic, Albers’ color studies eventually led to the publication, in 1963, of his influential book Interaction of Color.

Subject matter
One of the "Variants" that Albers began creating in the late forties. The "Variants" were visual experiements with the psychic effect of color. Albers applied paint directly from the tube.

Physical Description
A white rectangle stretches from near the left edge to the right edge. It has two small verticle ochre rectangles close to either end. Around the white rectangle are sections of yellow and ochre.

Primary Object Classification
Painting

Primary Object Type
abstract

Additional Object Classification(s)
Painting

Collection Area
Modern and Contemporary

Rights
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Keywords
Abstract (fine arts style)
Color-field
Minimal
Op art
Rubenism
abstraction
geometric abstraction
modern and contemporary art
rectangles
squares