On Tideland

Josef Albers, On Tideland, 1947-1955, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.1
Copied Josef Albers, On Tideland, 1947-1955, oil on fiberboard, 27 1⁄4 x 36 in. (69.2 x 91.5 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.1

Artwork Details

Title
On Tideland
Artist
Date
1947-1955
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
27 1⁄4 x 36 in. (69.2 x 91.5 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil on fiberboard
Classifications
Keywords
  • Abstract — geometric
Object Number
1986.92.1
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1986.92.1

Artwork Description

The playful asymmetry of On Tideland results from Albers’s use of only three colors: gray, ochre, and a rosy orange. The large gray “background” has a blue cast when adjacent to ochre and seems to recede in space, but that same gray in the smaller vertical forms seems to take on a different hue when placed beside the pinkish orange. Meanwhile, the gray rectangle on the right appears to be twice as wide as the one on the left, although in fact it is three times broader, and reveals Albers’s goal to examine the “exciting discrepancy between physical fact and visual effect.”

Modern Masters: Midcentury Abstraction from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2008