Cristea Roberts Gallery is delighted to stage the first exhibition dedicated to all of the print portfolios made by Josef Albers.
The Sum of the Parts: The Complete Portfolios of Josef Albers (12 June – 29 August 2025), features eighteen portfolios using lithography, silkscreen, inkless intaglio and embossing. The portfolios made over a period of 14 years which are increasingly rare to see in their complete form, is each a powerful demonstration of how markedly original Albers was in his understanding of colour and line.
Josef Albers (1888 – 1976), was one of the greatest abstract artists of the twentieth century, creating seminal works in painting, stained glass, and furniture. He was also a dedicated printmaker who produced work in a variety of print techniques right up until his death in 1976. His complete graphic oeuvre comprises some 350 editions. In printmaking, Albers found the perfect vehicle with which to realize the full array of his imagery and to develop his theoretical approach to colour.
The Sum of the Parts: The Complete Portfolios of Josef Albers is the first exhibition dedicated solely to Albers’s complete print portfolios, all made during the latter decades of his life, using lithography, silkscreen, inkless intaglio, and embossing. Each one is a powerful demonstration of how markedly original Albers was in his understanding of colour and line. In creating these portfolios, he worked with some of the greatest print studios and master printers of the 20th century. In each case, their collaborations pushed the boundaries not only of his own practice, but also of what could be achieved in printed form.
The individual plates that make up each portfolio in this volume challenge or echo one another, support or oppose one another, but when viewed together, the visual perception and interpretation achieved demonstrates that the whole is always much greater than the sum of its parts.
The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.
The Sum of the Parts: The Complete Portfolios of Josef Albers is accompanied by a 144-page fully illustrated hard-back publication which includes texts by Nicholas Fox Weber, executive director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, and David Cleaton-Roberts, a senior director of Cristea Roberts Gallery. You can buy the book here.
© Text and Photo Courtesy of Cristea Roberts Gallery
