 In this rigorous series, begun in 1949, Albers explored chromatic interactions with nested squares.Usually painting on Masonite, he used a palette knife with oil colors and often recorded the colors he used on the back of his works.Each painting consists of either three or four squares of solid planes of color nested within one another, in one of four different arrangements and in square formats ranging from 406×406 mm to 1.22×1.22 m.

In 1959, a gold-leaf mural by Albers, "Two Structural Constellations" was engraved in the lobby of the Corning Glass Building in Manhattan.