 (1888-1976) is considered one of the most influential abstract painters of the twentieth century, as well as an important designer and educator. Albers's artistic career, which bridged European and American Modernism, consisted mainly of a tightly focused investigation into the perceptual properties of color and spatial relationships. Working with simple geometric forms, Albers sought to produce the effects of chromatic interaction, in which the visual perception of a color is affected by those adjacent to it. Albers's precise application of color also created plays of space and depth, as the planar colored shapes that make up the majority of his works appear to either recede into or protrude out of the picture plane.

Albers was born in Bottrop, Germany, and studied briefly at the Königliche Bayerische Akademie der Bildenden Kunst, Munich, in 1919 before becoming a student at the Weimar Bauhaus in 1920. In 1922, Albers joined the school’s faculty, first working in stained glass and, starting in 1923, teaching design. In 1933, he and

 emigrated to North Carolina, where they founded the art department at Black Mountain College. During their time at Black Mountain, Albers began to show his work extensively within the United States, including solo exhibitions at the Addison Museum of American Art, Andover (1935); J.B. Neumann’s New Art Circle, New York (1936, 1938); The Germanic Museum at Harvard University, Cambridge (1936); Katharine Kuh Gallery, Chicago (1937); San Francisco Museum of Art (1940); and the Nierendorf Gallery, New York (1941). The Alberses remained at Black Mountain until 1949 and in 1950 moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where Josef Albers was invited to direct a newly formed department of design at Yale University School of Art. In 1950, too, he developed what would become his seminal 

series, which he continued to elaborate until his death in 1976. This body of work was featured in a major exhibition organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1964 that traveled to twenty-two venues in the United States and Latin America. Albers retired from teaching in 1958, a few years prior to the publication of his important text 

(1963), which was reissued in two volumes in 2013. Following numerous gallery and museum exhibitions, as well as his participation in documenta 1 (1955) and documenta 4 (1968), Albers became the first living artist to be the subject of a solo exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, with his career-spanning retrospective there in 1971.

Painting on Paper: Josef Albers in America

, which originated at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, in 2010 (traveled to Josef Albers Museum, Quadrat, Bottrop, Germany; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; Kunstmuseum Basel; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Centro de Arte Moderna, Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon; and the Morgan Library and Museum, New York); 

Josef Albers: Minimal Means, Maximum Effect

 at the Fundación Juan March, Madrid, in 2014 (traveled to Henie Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden, Norway); and 

A Beautiful Confluence: Anni and Josef Albers and the Latin American World 

at Mudec, Museo delle Culture, Milan, in 2015 to 2016. From 2016 to 2017, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, presented 

One and One Is Four: The Bauhaus Photocollages of Josef Albers

was presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and traveled to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice in 2018. 

was on view at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, in 2021, and subsequently traveled to IVAM (Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno), Valencia, Spain, in 2022. At the Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop, Germany, 

Since May 2016, The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation has been exclusively represented by David Zwirner. 

, which was on view in New York in 2019, marked the gallery’s third solo presentation of Josef Albers’s work, following the exhibitions 

 an exhibition exploring the visual and formal affinities and contrasts between the work of Albers and Giorgio Morandi, was on view in New York in 2021. David Zwirner, Hong Kong presented 

, the artist's first solo presentation in Greater China in 2022. David Zwirner, London organized the solo exhibition 

 in 2023, which was presented in tandem with the group exhibition 

Black Mountain College: The Experimenters

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) was an American abstract expressionist and figurative painter active in New York during the post–World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an editorial associate for 

. She married painter Willem de Kooning in 1943 and while retaining her own practice, she helped to promote his work.

Elaine de Kooning

Colm Toibin

Introduction by Nicholas Fox Weber. Texts by Josef Albers, Elaine de Kooning, and Colm Tóibín

Using minimal means—paint straight from the tube, applied meticulously with a palette knife—and a focused selection of colors, Josef Albers’s sustained, serial investigation into rhythm, mood, and spatial movement is explored in this lavishly produced catalogue that looks solely at his respective grey and yellow paintings, exploring two distinct color palettes pervasive to his oeuvre.

Highlighting the rich diversity of effects Albers drew from a narrow range of colors, this publication centers around the groundbreaking 

 (1950), the inaugural painting in the series that would occupy the artist until his death in 1976. The pairing of two palettes—black, white, and grey and an array of yellows—stems in part from Albers’s 1964 series of lithographs, 

, which brought together these two opposing color sets in a single portfolio. Together they address the limitless possibilities the artist found in color and form in relation to light. The impossible simultaneity of “midnight” and “noon” moreover speaks to Albers’s transcending of what he called “factual facts” in favor of the play of perception and illusion possible in art.

Opening with an introduction by Nicholas Fox Weber, executive director of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, that contextualizes these works and their color palettes, this volume also includes Albers’s own writing on 

. Additionally, Elaine de Kooning’s historic text and Colm Tóibín’s recent writing explore this body of work from different perspectives and time periods. Published on the occasion of exhibitions at David Zwirner’s New York and London galleries in 2016 and 2017, this beautifully illustrated publication looks at one of the most influential abstract painters of the twentieth century.

Josef Albers: Midnight and Noon

Josef Albers: Midnight and Noon | Books

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.