James Howell – Resolution and Independence
curated by Dr. Heinz Liesbrock
April 10 - July 10, 2022

Josef Albers Museum
Anni-Albers-Platz 1
46236 Bottrop, Germany

The exhibition title Resolution and Independence points toward the sensual clarity and the singular stillness of James Howell's artistic practice. The phrase comes from the poem Resolution and Independence by William Wordsworth, a deeply moving poem conveying a wide range of emotions experienced in the vast landscape of the moor. Like Wordsworth, Howell in his work integrates the opposites of happiness and sorrow, of light and darkness. And just as the upliftedness of nature is a prominent theme in Wordsworth’s poetry, so in Howell’s work do we sense allusions to open vistas. We are reminded of a wide view from the coast through the bright and shifting fog and over the Pacific Ocean in Washington State, where the artist lived and worked for many years.

About the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop
The Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, located in Bottrop, Germany, is the only museum in Europe dedicated exclusively to the work and legacy of Josef Albers. Situated within the Quadrat complex—a cultural center combining museum, archive, and research facilities—the institution presents a rigorous program of exhibitions focused on modern and contemporary abstraction. In addition to stewarding the largest collection of Albers’s work outside the United States, the museum fosters scholarly research and international dialogue around color theory, perception, and geometric form. Through its curatorial initiatives and publications, the Josef Albers Museum plays a central role in advancing the understanding of postwar abstraction within a global context.