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Josef Albers and Glass, Color, Light Josef Albers Glass, Color, andLight 152pages uith$6full-colorplates and 19 black-and-white illustrations As a master at Germany's Bauhaus until 1933, and then as a professor in American schools such as Black Mountain College and Yale University,JosefAlbers (1888-1976) influenced scores ofyoung artists. His Homage to the Square series ofpaintings remains a touchstone oftwentiet—h-century art. Yet Albers's first great works ofart the glass—pictures that he made in Germany starting in 1921 remain little known. First using found fragments ofcolored glass, and then employing a sophisticated sandblasting process on glass, Albers created a new art form as spectacular in its mastery ofcolor and light as it was inherently fragile. JosefAlbers: Glass, Color, andLight is the first monograph devoted to Albers's work in glass. Accompanying the color reproductions ofevery extant glass picture is full documentation by Brenda Danilowitz oftheJosefAlbers Foundation. This volume also illustrates and provides information on Albers's architectural commissions in glass and those works that were lost or destroyed after the artist fled Nazi Germany. Essays by Nicholas Fox Weber, Executive Director oftheJosefAlbers Foundation, and Fred Licht, Curator ofthe Peggy Guggenheim Collection, illuminate the many themes suggested by this extraordinary group of works, while a chronology ofAlbers's life and professional career places the glass works in the context ofhis entire oeuvre. A statement by the artist, an exhibition history, and a select bibliography make this the first comprehensive source on the subject. Cover: Park, ca. 1924 (cat. no. 7). Glass, wire, metal, and paint, in wood frame; 49.5 x 38 cm (l9'/2 x 15 inches). TheJosefAlbers Foundation. Printed in Germany Digitized by the Internet Archive 2012 with funding from in New METRO Metropolitan York Library Council - http://archive.org/details/glascoliOOalbe Josef Albers Glass, Color. andLight Josef Albers andLight Glass, Color, An exhibition organizedby the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Venice, andthe JosefAlbers Foundation, Orange, Connecticut GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM ©1994The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Josef Albers Glass, Color, andLight New York. All rights reserved. Published 1994. Second edition 1994. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice ISBN 0-8109-6864-9 (hardcover) March 30-July 10, 1994 ISBN 0-89207-128-1 (softcover) Printed in Germany by Cantz. Palazzodelle Esposizioni, Rome July 21-October 3, 1994 AllJosefAlbers works ©1994TheJosefAlbers Foundation, Orange, Connecticut. Used by permission. All rights reserved. IVAM CentreJulio Gonzalez, Valencia November 3, 1994-January 8, 1995 Guggenheim Museum Publications 1071 Fifth Avenue Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York New York, New York 10128 June 7-Sept. 17, 1995 Hardcoveredition distributed by Smith College Museum ofArt, Northampton, Massachusetts Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, New York Fall 1995 A Times MirrorCompany Project editor: LauraL. Morris Design: Cara Galowitz, Michelle Martino Production: Elizabeth Levy In most cases, photographs have been lent by the owners ofthe art works. Additional photo credits appear below. Essays: p. 8, Umbo; p. 11, David Heald; p. 12, Associated Press; p. 16, Elke Walford, Fotowerkstatt, Hamburger Kunsthalle; p. 18, Brother Placid, OSB. Catalogue: nos. 3, 14, 19, 31, Lee Stalsworth; nos. 4, 7, 8, II, 16, 17, 26, 29, 34, 35, 41, 46, 48-52, Tim Nighswander; nos. 5, 12, 20, 21, 28, 33, 44, Ray Errett; no. 10, Atelier GiinterJagenburg, Fotografie fur Werbung und Industrie, Leverkusen; no. 22, Lee B. Ewing; no. 32, Haus fur konstructive und konkrete Kunst, Zurich; no. 36, Piermarco Menini; nos. 42, 45, David Heald; no. 43, RudolfWakonigg, Miinster. AppendixofDestroyedandLost Works: nos. 1, 2, 4—8, TheJosefAlbers Foundation; no. 3, The Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Gift ofthe Artist, ©President and Fellows, Harvard College, Harvard University Art Museum. AppendixofWorks in GlassforArchitecturalProjects: nos. 1—7, TheJosefAlbers Foundation; no. 8, Bill Hedrich, Hedrich-Blessing, Chicago. Chronology: nos. 1, 2, TheJosefAlbers Foundation; nos. 3, 4, Umbo; no. 5, Rudolph Burckhardt; no. 6,Jon Naar. Cover: Park, ca. 1924(cat. no. 7). Glass, wire, metal, and paint, in wood trame; 49.5 x 38 cm (19'h x 15 inches). TheJosefAlbers Foundation. J Contents Preface Philip Rylands A New Light:Josef Albers's Work in Glass Nicholas Fox Weber Albers: Glass, Color, and Light 14 FredLithi Catalogue 27 Brenda Danilowitz Appendix ofDestroyed and Lost Works 129 Appendix ol Works in Glass for [35 Architectural Projects "A New Type ofGlass Picture' 141 JosefAlbers Chronology 14 Exhibitions 148 Select Bibliography 149 Preface In October 1942, at the opening party for her Philip Rylands museum-gallery in New York, Peggy Guggenheim wore one earring by Alexander Calder and another by Yves Tanguy to show, as she wrote in her memoirs, "my impartiality between Surrealist and abstract art." Peggy's perception ofModern art as two opposite trends was derived, apparently, from Marcel Duchamp, who had taught her the difference between abstraction and Surrealism when she first decided to dedicate herselfto art, in 1938. This impartiality is perhaps what makes the Peggy Guggenheim Collection unique. Its coverage ofso much ofearly twentieth-century avant-garde art is such that one sometimes feels lured into identifying its lacunae, as ifit were a stamp collection with incomplete sets. Although the collection includes works by Paul Klee and Vasily Kandinsky from their Bauhaus years, works by other masters ofthe school are missing. Given the preeminence ofJosef Albers in the history oftwentieth-century abstraction (both in Europe and America) and the importance ofabstraction in Peggy's collection, his absence is curious. It was unlikely, however, that Albers and Peggy would have crossed paths in the 1940s, when he taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina and she was based in New York. Furthermore, by the time Albers's fame began to spread in the United States during the 1950s, Peggy had already turned her back on New York and settled in Venice. It is, therefore, with a proud sense ofenriching one ofthe key—elements ofthe Peggy G—uggenheim Collection European abstraction that we present this exhibition, the first dedicated solely to Albers's works in glass and the first important exhibition in Italy ofthe artist's work. In addition, it marks a crescendo ofinterest in the production ofthe German Bauhaus. In 1988, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York organized a retrospective ofthe art of Albers, which was curated by Nicholas Fox Weber, Executive Director oftheJosefAlbers Foundation in Orange, Connecticut. TheJosefAlbers Foundation later, in 1991, made a munificent gift ofnineteen works by Albers to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Conversations between Nicholas Fox Weber and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection's Curator, Fred Licht, led to the conception ofthe We current specialized exhibition project. are extremely grateful to Nicholas Fox Weber and to