Hermès’ Homage to Albers

When Hermès made its first silk square in 1937 Josef Albers hadn’t yet painted a square. Let alone an homage to a square.

Below are the six scarves Hermès made. Exact replicas of six of Albers’ square paintings. Such beauties.

| Hermès six silk scarves, recreations of Josef Albers’ Homage to the Square |

Albers created more than a thousand square homages for over a period of 25 years. He used a set format of several squares within squares which appear to be overlapping or nested within one another. All slightly off kilter and creating all sorts of optical illusions using colour. A question of what happens when one colour sits beside another colour. Showing his workman like technical style he also placed the recipes for the paintings on the reverse.

I didn’t have a good image of one of the square paintings so here are a whole lot from Google.

| Josef Albers’ Homage to the Square from Google search |