Josef Albers, a pivotal figure of 20th-century abstraction, devoted much of his career to the study of color.
‍

Albers was not seeking transcendence or pure emotion. What interested him was the way colors interact with one another.
He did not see them as fixed entities, but as relative phenomena that shift depending on their visual environment. This idea lies at the heart of his book Interaction of Color, which has become a foundational text of modern color theory.

Albers’ method is strict, almost scientific. He applied his colors straight from the tube onto a masonite panel using a palette knife.
No mixing, no accidental texture effects , everything was controlled.

‍
Recognized during his lifetime as a major figure of abstraction, Josef Albers achieved a rare form of consecration by becoming the first living artist to receive a retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

‍