STUART, FLA.- The Elliott Museum’s 3rd exhibit in commemoration of its grand re-opening celebrates Josef Albers’ extensive contribution as an artist and educator.

A number of Albers’ paintings are on display, as well as the work of two of his students; Neil Welliver and Jane Davis Doggett. Welliver and Doggett mastered Albers’ discipline of the interaction of color, and made it, in decidedly different ways, central to their work.

Josef Albers, (1888-1976), one of the twentieth-century’s most influential artists and art educators, was fascinated with color and its innate ability to create optical effects. Albers studied the interaction of color -- in combination, in competition, how it could complement and confound. In his paintings and through his time as head of Yale University’s Department of Design, he challenged people to see and dissect the mechanics of color.

He became a master at teaching and painting many of what are now considered the basic laws of color usage in art and design: the use of negative space, the effect of the after image, depth perception, form through color and the optics of color.

Neil Welliver, (1929 - 2005), a modern artist known for large scale landscape paintings, used color boldly in his work. Both through the density of color represented and in his use of paint on top of paint Welliver communicates depth in his works. Often spending days by himself in the wild, Welliver used unspoiled wilderness as his primary subject matter.

He often focused on capturing light and landscape through color intensity and density. In his paintings, Welliver makes color “behave,” an Albers term, to communicate season, time of day, and, most importantly, a new way of communicating depth in a painting.

Jane Davis Doggett, an internationally acclaimed graphic designer, is one of the pioneering women artists to have trained at the Yale School of Art and Architecture during its modernist heyday.

Her colorful and comprehensive thematic graphic identity and wayfinding systems now enliven many public complexes, including 40 international airport projects — more than any other designer in the world. Doggett has received acclaim for her designs on an international scale with her work published in Italy, Japan, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

In her later years she has returned to her artistic roots, exploring how color, geometry, and literature combine to explore and express profound cultural truths. Whereas Albers comes to color to explore, and Welliver to conquer, Doggett uses color as an open invitation.