The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown has received a significant gift: a 1957 oil-on-Masonite painting by Josef Albers, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. The work, titled “Homage on the Square,” was donated by William and Linda Roemer of the Pittsburgh area in memory of William’s parents, James and Helen Roemer. It is now on display in the Beeghly-Schaff Gallery on the museum’s first floor.
The painting belongs to Albers’ celebrated series in which he explored color perception and optical relationships through arrangements of nested squares. Albers (1888–1976) taught at Germany’s Bauhaus school from 1923 to 1933 before emigrating to the United States, where he joined Black Mountain College in North Carolina. His students there included Robert Rauschenberg and Ruth Asawa. He later chaired the Department of Design at Yale University. Director Emeritus Louis Zona observed that Albers shaped post-World War II American art through his dual influence as both an artist and a teacher.
The Roemer family previously donated a Jackson Pollock painting to the Butler in 2009. The Butler Institute of American Art, founded in 1919, was the nation’s first museum dedicated exclusively to American art and remains one of the country’s leading institutions in that collecting area.
Source: Business Journal Daily