Josef Albers in Mid Lancs

Today I was passing through Accrington of all places when I stumbled upon a small municipal art gallery which had an exhibition of the work of Josef Albers. It hardly seemed possible - and yet there, hung round the well-shaped rooms of this former stately home (now the Howarth Gallery) were paintings and drawing by the mighty abstract minimalist himself. From the Bauhaus, to the Black Mountain College, then Yale - to Accy, home of Holland's meat pies! Teacher of Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly, father of the famous series Homage to the Square, and, hiterto unknown to me, painter of exquisite water colours, many of which were obviously studies for his larger works in oils. It was like a revelation and a blast of modernist sunshine illuminating a grizzly afternoon. I came home and ordered his Interaction of Colour and Designs for Living immediately from Amazon.