Josef Albers1888–1976
Taught colour and form at the Bauhaus
German-American artist and Bauhaus teacher whose Homage to the Square series, from 1950, made nested squares into a study of how colours act on one another.
Bauhaus Blocks
Squares that round off some corners and keep others. Drops, leaves, arches and circles fall out of one choice per corner, set in a strict grid.
About this pattern
Bauhaus geometric tradition, 1919–1933
Every shape is a cell of the grid, or two cells joined, and each of its four corners is either square or a quarter circle. That single choice is the whole vocabulary: one round corner makes a drop, two opposite corners a leaf, two neighbours a half-disc or an arch, all four a circle. When two round corners share a side they split it, so a shape never spills out of its cell, and the even gutter between cells is what holds the sheet together.
The look belongs to the Bauhaus school, 1919–1933, and the posters that still borrow it. The layout wraps around on itself, so it repeats without a seam, and in motion the corners turn round and square one at a time.
Behind the mathematics