BOTTROP, GERMANY.-The Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop, Germany is delighted to announce the unveiling of a newly commissioned wall mural by the internationally renowned conceptual artist Sol LeWitt. Opened September 4, 2005, the work titled Seven Basic Colors And All Their Combinations In A Square Within A Square. Walldrawing For Josef Albers. is an homage to the painter and color theorist Josef Albers. The artist Sol LeWitt has designed this walldrawing to work in concert with the spatial arrangement of the Albers Museum, itself constructed as an architectural reflection of Albers's most famous painting motif the Homage to the Square series.

This innovative new work comes as the second project in a series titled "Albers in Context" highlighting important American artists whose own work has been influenced by the revolutionary oeuvre of the German-born Josef Albers. Director of the Josef Albers Museum Dr. Heinz Leisbrock commented, "The importance of Albers's art and theory for opening a new field for American art after Abstract Expressionism still remains to be fully understood. Through this series we set out to examine his impact." The first work in this series, an Agnes Martin exhibition titled The Islands, was installed in the Museum's Bottrop gallery in the spring of 2004.

A teacher at the world-renowned Bauhaus design school from 1925 until the school's closure due to Nazi pressure in 1933, Josef Albers developed ground-breaking techniques in art forms ranging from glass construction and furniture design to color theory and type face. Immigrating to the United States in November 1933, Josef Albers along with his wife, the seminal textile designer and weaver Anni Albers, moved to Asheville, North Carolina. Teaching at the newly established Black Mountain College, Josef Albers continued his exploration of a range of printmaking techniques and took off as an abstract painter.

In 1950, the Alberses relocated to New Haven, Connecticut where Josef became the chairman of the Department of Design at Yale University School of Art, a position he held from 1950 to 1958. His famed Homage to the Square series serves as a vehicle for the presentation of different color climates and various color effects, above all for the demonstration of the way that solid colors change according to their positions and surroundings.

The direct impact of color, use of square forms, and serialized repetition of shape, central in the work of both LeWitt and Albers are the nucleus of "Walldrawing for Josef Albers." This walldrawing, set within the "Albers in Context" series, illuminates how Albers's position, with its base in European modernism was reflected by a new generation of American artists circa 1960, who themselves are considered vanguards of current contemporary movements. LeWitt's "Walldrawing for Josef Albers." mural meshes Albers's color theories with LeWitt's own signature style.

A catalogue also titled Seven Basic Colors And All Their Combinations In A Square Within A Square. Walldrawing For Josef Albers. has been produced in conjunction with this exhibition with accompanying text by the museum's Director, Dr. Heinz Liesbrock, and published by Richter Verlag, Düsseldorf. Seven Basic Colors And All Their Combinations In A Square Within A Square. Walldrawing For Josef Albers. by Sol LeWitt will be on view at the Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop, Germany from September 4, 2005 - November 20, 2005.