Josef Albers
Josef Albers in his Orange, Connecticut studio, 1969
Gift of Kenneth Tyler 2002
Photographer: William Crutchfield
Initially, Albers had been sceptical about using lithography; he believed the process could not match the luminosity that he achieved in his painting series Homage to the Square, which he had begun in 1950. Albers termed this series of paintings (which includes On an early sky of 1964) 'platters to serve color' - where colour combinations interact to effect different 'readings'. To achieve these effects with White Line Squares, a perfect fine white line was created by leaving the white paper exposed without any bleeding of the inks. The series became the visual expression of Albers' thesis:
A white line within a color area instead of as a contour may present a newly discovered effect—when the line is placed within a so-called 'Middle' color, even when the color is very evenly applied, it will make the one color look like two different shades or tints of that color.
When Albers was in his mid 80s, he produced with Tyler the series of colour screenprints, Gray Instrumentation - in which all the inks were printed directly onto the white of the paper, without overlap, to achieve subtle hues and luminosity. Such an exercise required a perfect system of registration in screenprinting, as well as perfect colour matching.
Jane Kinsman
Works in the Kenneth E Tyler Collection
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Never before e
1976 -
Yellow: from the portfolio Mitred Square
1976 -
White embossing on gray IV
1971 -
White line square VIII
1966 -
White line square III
1966
Further Reading
EXHIBITIONS
- Lichtenstein to Warhol: The Kenneth Tyler Collection, 2019–20
- Print by print, step by step: artists’ prints in series, 9 March – 16 June 1985
- Ken Tyler: printer extraordinary, 6 June – 13 October 1985
NATIONAL GALLERY PUBLICATIONS
- Lichtenstein to Warhol: The Kenneth Tyler Collection, Jane Kinsman, exhibition catalogue, 2019
- Workshop: The Kenneth Tyler Collection, Jane Kinsman (ed.), 2015
- The Art of Collaboration: The Big Americans, Jane Kinsman, exhibition catalogue, 2002
- Ken Tyler Printer Extraordinary, 1985
TYLER GRAPHICS PUBLICATIONS
- Never Before, 1976
- Mitered Squares, 1976
- Four Portfolios, 1974-76
- Gray Instrumentation I, 1975
- Gray Instrumentation II, 1974
- Lithographs Gemini G.E.L., 1968
RELATED LINKS
Related
14 Oct 1999—26 Jan 2000
