Transformation D

Josef Albers American, born Germany

1950

Not on view

Produced the year that Albers became head of the department of design at the Yale University School of Art, the series of four Transformation prints emerged from the experimentation that characterized his earlier woodblock prints at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. By shifting to the mechanical rendering of geometrical forms (through machine engraving), Albers stripped away the materiality of his earlier work, achieving an almost preternatural purity of form. Influenced by the appeal to technology of the Bauhaus movement in Germany, Albers’s print displays floating wireframe shapes against a black background in an example of geometrical abstraction devoid of scale and exterior reference.

Artwork Details

Title: Transformation D
Artist: Josef Albers (American (born Germany), Bottrop 1888–1976 New Haven, Connecticut)
Date: 1950
Medium: Intaglio on formica printed relief
Dimensions: Sheet: 7 1/8 × 9 1/2 in. (18.1 × 24.1 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Gift of the Josef Albers Foundation Inc., 1971
Object Number: 1971.636.39
Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

By Josef Albers

In the same medium

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Homage to the Square: Dilated, Josef Albers American, born Germany, Oil on Masonite — Homage to the Square: Dilated
Josef Albers
1969

Homage to the Square: Frontal Backing, Josef Albers American, born Germany, Oil on Masonite — Homage to the Square: Frontal Backing
Josef Albers
1970

Homage to the Square: On Near Sky, Josef Albers American, born Germany, Oil on Masonite — Homage to the Square: On Near Sky
Josef Albers
1963

Transformation of a Scheme No. 8, Josef Albers American, born Germany, Engraving on formica — Transformation of a Scheme No. 8
Josef Albers
1949

Never Before, Josef Albers American, born Germany, Oil on Masonite — Never Before
Josef Albers
1971

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