Josef Albers, Red and White, 1923 and the Golden Rectangle

Successive Golden Rectangles dividing a Golden Rectangle into squares (Red and White, 1923 by Josef Albers).

  

Josef Albers (1888 - 1976) was a German-born American artist (geometric abstraction) and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century.

Red and White. Stained-glass window (destroyed) in antechamber of director's office executed by Albers for the first Bauhaus Exhibition Weimar, 1923. Source: The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.

Geometric abstract art is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective (non-representational) compositions.


A golden rectangle is a rectangle whose side lengths are in the golden ratio, one-to-phi, that is, approximately 1:1.618. A distinctive feature of this shape is that when a square section is removed, the remainder is another golden rectangle, that is, with the same proportions as the first. Square removal can be repeated infinitely, which leads to an approximation of the golden or Fibonacci spiral.