Interaction of Color

"When someone says, 'red' (referring to a description or a color), and when fifty people are listening, you can expect that fifty people will think of red. You can be sure that all of these reds are different." With the first two sentences that begin a masterpiece of art education, Interaction of Color, it becomes clear how complicated the impact of color and its visual perception can be. First published in 1963 by Yale University Press in a limited serigraph edition with 150 color plates, this text became a mass-market paperback with just a few color plates in 1971. Since then, more than a quarter-million copies of it in various editions have been sold. This influential handbook and teaching tool for artists, instructors, and students is now being republished as a new translation in a much-expanded edition. With a new introduction by Heinz Liesbrock, it contains around sixty illustrations of the color principles Albers used to demonstrate important axioms and rules of color and its effects. As did previous editions, this handbook offers indispensable knowledge for everyone who deals with visual communication.

An artist, educator, and color theorist, JOSEF ALBERS (1888-1976) was also a pioneer of twentieth-century modernism. He is known for his comprehensive series of works, Homage to the Square (1950-76) and taught at the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and at Yale University.

HEINZ LIESBROCK ( 1953) is Director of the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat in Bottrop. He has written extensively on Albers and his impact on art, as well as on Edward Hopper, Walker Evans, and others.