Josef Albers

Josef Albers (1888–1976), Study for Homage to the Square: What You Want No. 2, 1968
Oil on board, 16 × 16 in. Promised Gift to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. A2012-002. © 2026 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

In 1950, Albers began a now famous series entitled Homage to the Square. He would ultimately make over a thousand of these works. Each image utilized the same regular and strict format: colored squares within squares. Liberated from concocting new compositions and conceiving new themes, Albers could focus on the complexities of color and our shifting perceptions of it.