Josef Albers Study for Homage to the Square: Resolute represents a fundamentally significant canvas within the artist’s extensive oeuvre and an axial work within Albers exploration into colour theory and shape. A disarmingly simple work, Resolute cites three simple superimposed squares of paint applied directly onto the canvas with a palette knife from the tube, with the ambition to highlight the power and seduction of colour and how it is perceived by the human eye.

Study for Homage to the Square: Resolute is part of a series that Albers began in 1950 and that occupied him for 25 years. The series is defined by an un-mitigating adherence to the square as a specific artistic formula. The static simplicity of the three squares of paint create a sublime optical illusion within the present work. When the viewer’s eye is drawn to the centre of the canvas, the receding panes wash the colours together, allowing them to diffuse through the work in a warming and shimmering gradient. This series of works by Josef Albers was not only a pinnacle point in the artist’s career but was a transformative moment within the twentieth century, providing a basis for other artists to understand and learn the fundamentals of colour theory. Initially painted to help students understand the geometry of abstraction and the effects that adjacent colors have on one another, Albers went on to produce more than a thousand square paintings ranging in size from twelve to forty-eight square inches. Four other Homage to the Square paintings by the artist reside in the Tate London’s collects ion.

A major inspiration for Study for Homage to the Square: Resolute came from Albers attending the Bauhaus school of art in Weimar, Germany in 1920. A large focus of his education was the study of colour and specifically, the 1810 book written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe which detailed the phenomenon known as Farbenlehre ‘Theory of Colours’. This study detailed the nature of colour within shadows, refraction and chromatic aberration. The theory was widely taught at Bauhaus and remained close to Albers practice for his entire career. Albers was obsessed with the perception of colour and the human response to its variants, he is quoted "If one says “Red” (the name of a color) and there are 50 people listening, it can be expected that there will be 50 reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different" (Josef Albers, Interaction of Color, Yale 1963, p. 3.).

The process of each Homage to the Square painting was incredibly methodical. Albers would start each composition in the middle square and move outwards so as not to paint over anything that might affect the intricate relationship between each colour plane. The paintings were done on a flat table as opposed to a vertical easel, reinforcing the notion of the paintings as platters to communicate the power of colour. Seductive and enlightening, Study for Homage to the Square: Resolute is a transcendent work from one of the most important colour theory series in contemporary art. Instantly recognisable, the ochre hues melt into one another as our gaze is drawn deeply into the calm serenity of the central enchanting square, challenging our fundamental understanding of relative colour theory. The intrinsic simplicity of this canvas, bolstered by the peerless precision, confirms Albers’ status as a titan of twentieth-century art.