Josef Albers Value: Top Prices Paid at Auction

Achieving the artist's current auction record, at Christie's New York in May 2023, is this late example from Albers' most celebrated series - it was created in 1971, the same year that Albers’ became the first living artist to have a solo show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The painting exemplifies Albers' mastery of his chosen format, with precisely calibrated squares of orange and red on a masonite board. The goal of the Homage To The Square series was to demonstrate how colours can influence one another when placed next to each other. In its entirety, the series totalled nearly 1000 artworks. This particular example, created just five years before Albers’ death, is considered a mature work. As such, its handling of colour theory is nuanced and subtle - the closeness of the hues used almost creates an optical illusion, with the darker shades establishing depth behind the lighter shades. The painting belonged to the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation until 2015, when it was purchased into the Gerald Fineberg Collection. Its sale in 2023 followed his death in 2022.

Setting what was then a new auction record at Sotheby's London in October 2017, Homage To The Square: Temperate (1957) achieved almost double its high estimate. At the time of the work’s creation, Albers was deeply engaged in his role as Chairman of the Department of Design at Yale. He revitalised the curriculum, ensuring students studied painting, sculpture, graphic arts, and architecture under the umbrella of design. His work with designers such as Alvin Eisenman, Herbert Matter, and Alvin Lustig helped to shape his mature artworks. Temperate’s popularity at auction is reflective of both its ties to Albers’ professional career, as well as the dynamic effect of its use of contrasting and gradating colours.

This significant work achieved its impressive result at Sotheby's New York in November 2022, marking another strong sale during a period of broader market volatility. Created in the same year as the publication of his seminal text Interaction of Color, published by Yale University Press, this 1963 painting reflects the crystallisation of Albers' theories about chromatic relationships. Albers notably applied paint straight from the tube using a palette knife, “like butter on pumpernickel,” the strokes of which are visible in the smallest nested square - the only evidence of a human hand in this geometric composition. Its complex use of colour - turning purple into dark blue by placing it between a lighter blue and brown - is perhaps one of the most striking examples of Albers’ command of colour in existence.

In many ways the inverse of the record-holding Homage To The Square (1971), Red Tetrachord (1962) sold at Christie's London in October 2019 for a value almost double its high estimate. Its title references musical theory - a parallel that Albers often drew in his work - with a tetrachord being a series of four notes in a scale. Albers’ exploration of individual shades of red in this study is significant in itself. He once said, "If one says 'Red' and there are fifty people listening, it can be expected that there will be fifty reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different." As a study, this piece is slightly smaller than the Homage To The Square paintings, reaching 76.2cm x 76.2cm instead of the usual 101cm x 101cm. Albers likely used it to test colour combinations before committing to the larger masonite board.

This late-career work achieved its notable result at Christie's New York in November 2016, during a particularly strong period for Albers' market. Created in 1973, just three years before his death, the painting shows no diminution of Albers' precision or chromatic sensitivity. This piece is a rare example of Albers using black paint, with the effect of bringing the darkness out in its surrounding colours. Traditionally, Albers’ work from the 1950s and 1960s was most sought-after; however, this list proves that collector appreciation for his 1970s works is growing - in fact, two of the top five auction results are held by 1970s works from the Homage To The Square series, and both occurred in the last 10 years.

This piece from Albers’ Homage To The Square series sold at Sotheby's New York in May 2018. The work’s title, Light Inside (1967), directly references its optical impact, with a luminous yellow central square and darker natural tones around it. The yellow square seems to leap off the board, while the other squares seem nested close together - this effect is caused by the gradual, and then sudden, lightening of each square’s hue. This sale continued the strong market momentum for Albers' work established in 2016-17, confirming sustained collector interest in pieces that clearly demonstrate his theories about colour interaction.

One of the most recent sales on this list, Yellow Resonance (1957) sold at Sotheby's New York in November 2023 out of the Emily Fisher Landau Collection. Prior to this, it had a rich exhibition history, both within the Landau collection and before. In the first two years after its creation, it was exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Sidney Janis Gallery. The painting's vibrant, but limited, yellow palette is a perfect example of Albers’ interest in exploring the behaviour of very specific shades of colour, particularly how they appear to advance or recede based on their relationships with adjacent hues. In this piece, the largest yellow square appears to be slightly in shadow compared to the smallest yellow square. Albers once said that he "was for years in the yellow period," describing the colour as caring, curing, and uplifting.

This 1964 work achieved its significant result at Christie's New York in November 2012, marking an early peak in Albers' market that would be sustained and surpassed in subsequent years. The painting's white-dominated palette represents a relatively rare departure from Albers' typically more saturated colour choices. Its strong performance, then a record for Albers’, helped establish the million-pound threshold for exceptional examples from the Homage To The Square series, setting a precedent for future sales.

Achieving this result at Christie's New York in May 2012, the sale of Distant Alarm (1966), like White Nimbus (1964), represented a surge in the market for Albers’ work. The work's title suggests the unsettling optical effect created by its carefully chosen subtle colour combination - an example of how Albers used naming to direct viewers' perceptions of his works. The viewer’s reaction to this piece, and its bright red tones, proves Albers’ belief in the power of colour to evoke strong emotion. Distant Alarm is notably larger than most other Homage To The Square artworks, adding to its rarity and desirability for collectors.

Midsummer (1964) rounds out the top 10 results for Albers' work at auction, selling at Christie's London in December 2016. It was created during a particularly productive period in his career, when he was deep into his Homage To The Square series and enjoying critical and professional acclaim. Its title reflects the combination of yellow and orange squares used in its composition - a specific colour relationship that Albers’ found quite playful. While not reaching the seven-figure threshold of the other works on this list, its strong performance at the end of the busy 2016 auction season contributed to that year's status as a turning point in the appreciation of Albers' market.