Josef Albers

Homage to the Square, 1964. 30 x 30 in. Tate Gallery, London


4 squares of yellow nest together. Despite a rigid format, they float freely, creating an optical illusion of another dimension. Each area has been painted in a single color. The paint has been applied with a knife, directly from the tube.
Joseph Albers was born in Bottrup, Holland in 1888 and died in New Haven, CT in 1976. Between 1920-23, Albers studied at the famous Bauhaus school. He joined the staff in 1923. He is from Holland but moved to the USA in 1933, where he taught many established artists at the Black Mountain College and Yale University. His influential book The Interaction of Color was published in 1963. In this he explores the perception of color, which was a dominant theme throughout his life. (Butler, Van Cleve, Stirling)



**Apologies for the quality of this photo... after several attempts, I just couldn't get a clear one!**

Op Art

Current, Bridget Riley, 1964. Synthetic polymer paint on composition board, 58 x 58". MOMA, New York.

An abbreviation of 'optical art', a form of abstract art which developed in the early 1960s and aimed at stimulation of the eye through a radical use of space and color. This was achieved by the employment of hard-edged, flatly painted shapes in black and white or in complementary colors of full intensity. The term 'Op art' was first used in Time magazine in 1964 and had become a household phrase by the following year when the defining exhibition The Responsive Eye was held at the MOMA, NYC. Two of the most prominent Op artists were Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely. Op art exerted a considerable influence on women's fashion in the mid-1960s. (Michael Clarke)

**sorry about the fuzzy photograph!**

Kinetic Art

Alexander Calder, Hanging Spider, 19.40. Painted sheet metal and wire. Private collection

A kind of moving art. Closely related to Op Art in its concern with the perception of motion by visual stimulus, it was a logical step to present objects that actually moved. Characteristic of the work of Alexander Calder and the Constructivists. (Gardner)